


La Bohème

by Ibbyliv



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Enjolras hardly even cares for art, Fluff, Grantaire is an art teacher, M/M, Running Away, Student Enjolras, Teacher Grantaire, Teacher-Student Relationship, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:03:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Here we are,” he muttered lazily, pulling a piece of paper out of his pile and leaning on his elbow on the desk in a <em>draw me like one of your French boys manner</em>, reading the names in alphabetical order mechanically as the students raised their hands in the air to declare their presence. He was glad to finally be in a class where at least students did not care for his socio-political slash philosophical slash addiction-ridden views, if not in a class where students actually liked him.</p><p>He reread the list with the students’ names, feeling his palms getting clammy. His mind fled for an instant, and he wondered how drunk he really was. Pictures fled through his eyes, from his art books, the sound of tourists’ steps in the Louvre, with the way a mallet had felt against his fingers the first time he had touched one in his sculpting classes, marble cheekbones, ancient figures…That was wrong, a mistake. It couldn’t be. </p><p>
  <em>It was autumn when they first met, and Apollo was dressed in red.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. September

**Author's Note:**

> So. I posted this fic a few days ago and immediately deleted it because I went through one of my ridiculously immature low self-esteem phases when I think that everything is crap. I mean, it might be but still that made me feel like such a selfish coward, and now I realize that some people might feel happier with another teacher/student AU, so here it is and please accept my apologies.  
> The song title is from the beautiful song "La Boheme" by Charles Aznavour.  
> WARNING: Enjolras is 17 so this is underage!!  
> Also I'm sorry for the extensive use of quotes. I know that it might seem stupid. But I did it anyway. Gah...

The fire of the candle flickers before his eyes and he moves them slowly to the wrinkled white sheets lit by its light, lucky, contented sheets which embrace the curve of those firm, pale hips, legs peeking out, legs resembling those of a woman, slender, smooth, with short fair hair that glimmers in the dim light, feet that seem to have burst out of a painting of Michelangelo and the scene somehow has a touch of Renaissance, and he feels the pride of those who discovered the statue of the ancient Apollo Belvedere, of those Italians who dusted the soil from the marble face and held it tenderly, breathing life into it again.

Apollo Belvedere is lying in his bed which is more of a mattress, really, worn, patched, with foam peeking out of the holes, but it does very little harm as his sole existence pales everything, the candlelight seems faint, poor, compared to the light of the youthful Apollo from whom it seems to radiate its own brightness, and the candle is jealous, trying to imitate that holy existence, a slender, red candle with the fire playing the role of a golden halo but quite poorly, because Apollo has a halo himself, surrounding the young, pale face with the dark, Greek eyes full of life and wisdom of the centuries of generously granting them with his light, sheets tangled between his long limbs, a silver cheekbone and a thin, toned torso, his neck long and shining with a sheen of sweat as he rests the weight of his body on his elbow.

He is full of power and he knows it, it is engraved on his parted, wet, red lips, he knows of the words he is capable to exhale, of the change a single sigh of his can bring to the world, of the way the Earth can stop and the Sky can bow, and as his brush fights with the canvas, trying to entrap those features, he knows that he, with those icy blue eyes, he’s the sky, full and so empty at the same time, bigger, older than the Earth but always its slave, he’s there to embrace the Earth and to protect it, to teach it and to try to limit it because he thinks  _he_ is limitless but he isn’t, he’s simply chaotic, and the Earth will never bow, the fire will cover the sky with suffocating, grey smoke and prevail upon it.

Apollo is full of power and he knows it yet every movement is chaste, every sigh is almost childish, he is covered in the most glorious, transparent, fragile veil of innocence. He knows that one cry, one fist can cause the Earth to explode and the Sky to be filled with its ash, but he waits, he dreams, he loves even though he tries not to, even though he doesn’t know it.

Only seventeen.

It’s the first time he paints in the candlelight yet it feels like he’s never done it any other way. The pencil feels more trusting, lither between his fingers, the trembling shadows on the canvas seem to penetrate the draft and transform it into a breathing portrait without more effort from him.

He knows he’s growing old, he knows he’s already older than he should be, he knows that he is damned. But Apollo is only seventeen, and that’s where it begins.

It was autumn when they first met, and he was dressed in red.

** Autumn **

 

_A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession._

_Albert Camus_

Most people have dreams when they are young, some of them realize that when they first pop out of the womb and make those dreams their lives, some others decide in their adolescence that they need to give a point to this existence which rolls and rolls and goes on without asking them whether they’re ready, without stopping and giving them a break to realize what they’re really doing in this world.

Some dreams come true and Grantaire knows that people don’t necessarily need to fight to achieve them. Bullshit. People get their dreams because they’re meant to, sometimes, without a single movement of their small finger.

Most of the dreams never come true, even when people fight.

People believe that Grantaire never had a dream.

Grantaire  _did_ have a dream. Grantaire  _wanted_ to change the world. Grantaire once  _believed_ he could do it, not through his words, not through his actions, but through his art. The flame that burst inside him when he grabbed a pencil or his charcoal, it was like his own world died and was reborn from its ashes again and again, every single time.

Grantaire then learnt that dreams do not necessarily come true, unless you have a damn deal with the God or the Devil or that whore of a Muse you were granted with. Grantaire learnt not to believe. The world could not change.

He ended up teaching art in a godforsaken High School and he knew he was trapped and imprisoned in its decadence forever. Grantaire loved decadence, he  _breathed_  it. Just… just not of that sort.

He was surrounded by narrow minded fuckin’ idiots who foolishly believed that he liked his job just because he offered smiles, smiles those morons never took as  _sarcastic, ironic, fed up. Leave me the fuck alone._

He hated his job. He didn’t hate children, not all of them, at least. Being an art teacher grants you with the  _privilege_ of students choosing to attend your classes, of them being slightly interested in your subject.

Or at least seventeen year old hormonal douches who want to impress seventeen year old posh artistic hipsters who do  _art_ with a two thousand euros DSLR camera. And the aforementioned hipsters themselves.

He didn’t hate children. He  _did_ hate what he knew that would become of them. He  _did_ hate feeling obliged to force them do anything, to try and put something in their heads, he  _did_ hate how he wished they cared for his job when even he didn’t care for it. He  _did_ hate the fact that children were the fruit of their parents’ selfishness, of their desperate cries to leave something behind, their reflection on the mirror, something identical to them. He  _did_ hate those parents who destroyed their children’s lives on that sole quest: to see their own suppressed, unaccomplished dreams gain life in their children’s hands, hands they tend to mistake for their own even though they never were.

Autumns arrive one after the other, toddlers get fascinated by the completely new colors of nature around them, they can instinctively feel the change even in a huge city where trees struggle to bloom and breathe. Children hold new schoolbags in their hands with a lump on their throat, wondering what new is expecting them now that school begins, completely unaware of the similarity this year is going to bear to the last one. Teenagers look away, trying to savor the last days of summer in their shorts and short sleeves, stubbornly, despite the cool breeze which teases their hair, but they don’t really mind to start again, unwilling as they seem, because deep inside people feel safe when clutching on a routine, especially when they’re fed with the illusion that this routine is going to bring them closer to their dreams.

For Grantaire, autumn was nothing but mere repetition of his time in a well-disguised prison and inability to move forward or backward. He hated most of his fellow professors and he used to doodle their caricatures during lunch, huge women with mustaches, probably Nazi tormentors in their previous lives, strict, respected, half-bald men in their shirts and ties who cheated on their wives and fucked teenage girls inside their heads behind the thick, foggy lenses of their glasses. He had no opinion for the rest of them, trying his best to avoid their company when they had reunions and laughed over sickening jokes for students’ grammar and syntax mistakes.

Grantaire hated himself even though he never properly articulated his thoughts in his mind. He wasn’t the man for articulation anyway. When he tried to speak aloud, instead of picturing everything in a mess of colors and shades, he simply vomited endless, incoherent rambling, a huge  _fuck you_ to all those proper adult human beings around him who embraced their age yet hated it without admitting it.

He hadn’t realized the extent of his luck that he could actually  _teach art_ until the point that he was asked to do something else. The History Professor, Monsieur Valjean –who was in the bunch of those that he hadn’t gotten the chance to hang out with yet- would be absent for a day due to personal reasons, and concerning the fact that a day was hardly enough for another history professor to be needed to teach, he had to look after his class and occupy the students somehow.

It was a total of forty five minutes, and Grantaire was already counting down the seconds. He entered the bombarded class full of twenty seventeen year olds, half of them were in the corner, shouting and discussing something fervently, the rest of them on their desks, painting their fingernails and watching porn on their mobile phones. His expression remained blank as no one seemed to notice his presence, and he leaned his back against the wall lazily.

The bell rang and the students did not return to their desks. Not trying to hide a yawn, he started picking on a gum stuck on the floor with the tip of his scruffy boot. The second bell rang after a couple of minutes, and a few students from those in the corner returned to their seats. His blue eyes scanned them without vivid interest. A boy with a round, kind face and a pair of thick-framed glasses resting on his nose was sitting cross-legged on his chair, having opened a book on his knees which hardly reminded Grantaire of a school text book. He recognized Cosette, Valjean’s daughter, a girl from his art class who waved enthusiastically at him and Feuilly, who attended his art class as well, an extravagant talent Grantaire wouldn’t hide that he was jealous of. Jehan was another boy, always quiet, scribbling something in a corner of some corridor. He wasn’t Grantaire’s student, but he had heard about him after he’d earned a detention for writing erotic poetry in English class. He instantly decided that the poet, with his extraordinary, unusual beauty, his long ginger hair, braided over his shoulder and the huge sweaters in clashing colors and patterns that he wore, had already earned a place in the short list of the students he really admired, alongside Feuilly.

He turned his eyes to the other side of the room, at the porn-watching nail-painting wing, recognizing a couple of girls who attended his class and now waved at him, giggling.

Vomit. He wanted to vomit. No. He needed a drink. And maybe he could vomit later.

He slowly climbed on the teacher’s desk, with very few noticing him, and stood up, staring at the mayhem from up high. Soon a couple of students realized, and before he could understand what was going on, a sinisterly  _gorgeous_ boy with quirky, green eyes and dark, shiny curls had followed his example and climbed on his own desk, shouting dramatically “O Captain, my Captain!”

Half of the classroom burst into laughter, the rest probably hadn’t watched the movie. Grantaire noticed the bespectacled boy muttering “Courfeyrac!” in a warning tone, as if he was the professor. Another pale, tall boy cried: “watch out, you’ll both fall and break your spine!” Grantaire couldn’t hold back a chuckle himself.

“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way,” replied Grantaire, quoting the movie again. Now almost the whole class had stopped talking and turned to face him. He was rather startled that he’d ended up in a class where almost everyone was actually watching something apart from American Pie and Hangover.

Scratch that, Hangover was his life.

“I mean, you all look kinda funny from up here,” he continued almost sarcastically, “and I know that school has started and believe me, I pity you, because when I was in your position I mostly needed to curl in a ball and die, so considering that I’m now staring at you from that angle, I know you treasure every minute of shitting around. So in those forty two remaining minutes, you’ll have the chance to absolutely shit around –and let me do the same myself,- if,” he scratched his unshaven cheekbone with his bitten fingernails, “you remain quiet to the point which keeps me and my job out of trouble. If you need anything call me R, don’t you even dare use  _Monsieur_ to me because that’ll piss me out of my mind. Okay, nice meeting you, thank you for your attention et cetera et cetera.”

Silence fell in the classroom for a little while and he realized that mission avoiding-the-first-word-vomit had failed epically. But soon most of the students cheered, the bespectacled boy returned to his book with a smile, Feuilly back to the crowd of the talking boys, he realized that before him stood Marius Pontmercy as well, he could never forget all the hours Éponine had spent drooling about him. The boy was now shooting the most ridiculously stalkerish glances Grantaire had ever seen to Cosette, digging his head through his friends’ elbows, kneeling and trying to take a glimpse of her through their legs or jumping behind their backs, and the  _Captain_ boy with the quirky eyes jumped in a superhero manner from the desk, and started playing flirtatiously with Jehan’s braid –and Feuilly’s collar. And a girl’s sleeve. And Marius’… bottom jeans pocket.

Pleased with himself that he had settled his agreement with the students who seemed to keep their voices on a decent volume, he started searching in the pockets of his jacket for his earphones. It was then that he heard a bold voice near him. “Are you drunk?”

He raised his eyes and swallowed quickly. Before him stood a boy who was an inch or two taller than him, in a red t-shirt and a pair of tight jeans. His lips were red and full, like those of a woman, his nose straight, almost Greek, so were his eyes, dark and burning, contrasting with his pale, marble-like, youthful complexion. Grantaire’s mind fled for an instant, and he indeed felt drunk even though he hadn’t visited Ep’s bar for more than a couple of nights. He remembered pictures from his art books, his head was filled with the sound of tourists’ steps in the Louvre, with the way a mallet had felt against his fingers the first time he had touched one in his sculpting classes, marble cheekbones, ancient figures…

“You have to always be drunk,” Grantaire answered with a distant smile, “That’s all there is to it – it’s the only way.”

The boy took a step closer. “Baudelaire won’t do it for me, I’m no Jehan,” he answered sarcastically.

“A drunk mind speaks a sober heart,” Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “Better?”

“Rousseau was more than just a quote, don’t be simplistic,” the boy snorted.

“Of course it was,” nodded Grantaire. “And I assume you’ve read the Social Contract or something.”

“Twice,” he sighed impatiently.

Grantaire fell silent for a moment. “You don’t need to lie to me,” he finally said. “I don’t even know who your French teacher is.”

The boy frowned. “You’re pulling an admirable effort in being funny,” he said sharply, “but you’re failing miserably. Anyway, I wanted to ask you whether you’re planning to spend the rest of the hour listening to music.”

Grantaire raised his wrist and looked at his watch. “Thirty eight minutes, to be more specific. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m planning to do. You win a golden star.”

Enjolras snorted. “That’s why our society is so corrupted. The government is composed by people like you.”

“Decadent artists who prefer listening to music via half broken earphones?”

“No. People who don’t do the job they’re paid for.”

Grantaire realized that their faces were now too close, and he could feel the other’s warm breath brushing against his skin. “You realize that you’re speaking to a teacher, right?”

“Don’t try to play it strict because you wouldn’t be able to maintain order in a class if it weren’t for your fanfares and little shows,” said Enjolras, and even though Grantaire should be pissed off out of his mind, he couldn’t help but admire the student’s courage, and it was obvious that he would use such a manner to every other Professor, even if they weren’t as accepting as he was.

He sighed, pulling the earphones out of his ears. “What would you rather me doing right now? Teaching you history? You probably know better history than I do! Go on, why don’t you make the class shut up and teach them about the June Rebellion, or something?”

“What do you normally pretend to be teaching, R?” hissed the boy.

“Art?” cackled Grantaire. “You want me to  _try_ and force art down their throats for the rest half an hour when half of them haven’t chosen to attend that class at all?”

“Your job is to give the students  _something,_ anything which will take them a step forward from where they are. It’s people like you whom the educational system consists of, forcing us to spend twelve years of our lives earning the obligatory, standardized knowledge in order to pass some tests, and completely lack any chance of cultivation and murdering any form of creativity and freedom of mind, under the mask of an ‘open-minded student-teacher interaction’ when all that teachers really do is…”

“And why should the teachers feel so dedicated when society, in its turn, treats them like shit under the red soles of their Louboutins?” interrupted Grantaire snarkily, realizing that the whole class has stopped and is staring at them. “When they earn less money than they need to repair their heaters and buy some decent coffee?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Enjolras chuckled bitterly, “perhaps out of  _altruism_?”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow, ignoring the shocked glances of all the other students in the classroom piercing the two of them. “Do you honestly believe such a thing as altruism exists? Altruism is one of the cleverest disguises for human egoism, driven solely out of guilt and ambitions for personal and social pride, for people to feel good and important.”

The boy with the spectacles got up, walking carefully towards the blond one, who stopped him with a raised hand. The curly charmer seemed rather uncomfortable with the tension in the room, and quickly started chatting with his friends in order to distract them. Grantaire could never have been more thankful in his life; he made a mental notice to buy the boy gummy bears, or booze, or condoms, whatever the fuck teenagers these years needed to lead a happy life. “You don’t care at all, do you?” spoke the blond student.

With terror, he noticed that the sharpness and passion in the boy’s voice had been partly replaced by vague disappointment, darkening his beautiful features and bringing a lump to Grantaire’s throat. “You do,” he said, feeling terrified at the tender tone of his own voice, “that’s admirable.”

The piercing sound of the bell brought them all back to reality, students grabbing their bags and bursting out of the class, some of them waving goodbye, a couple of others winking at him and the curly boy slipping a piece of paper on Grantaire’s desk –Christ _,_ is that his  _number?-_ and the blond turned around to follow him, a disgusted look engraved on his flawless features.

Grantaire could feel his pulse quickening, and he found it completely impossible to hold his words. “Hey Apollo,” he shouted, “what’s your name?”

The boy stopped and turned around, his glance cold and his red lips pressed together. “ _Enjolras,_ ” he emphasized, “it’s Enjolras…”

_____________________________________________________________________

Grantaire had been used to teaching with a hangover. It was easier, smoother, to teach art with a chaos in your head, even though that very chaos made the process of  _making_ art rather woeful.

That day he went school with a throbbing head, uncombed hair and dark circles under his eyes, wishing that he wouldn’t stumble upon Headmaster Javert who would tell him off on his fashion choice, a green leather blazer with his favorite pair of old, black army boots. In all honest, they were the first things Grantaire had found in his wardrobe, and that quite explained the unexpected combination with an old, faded navy t-shirt. If he could smell himself, he swore that he’d stink of cigarettes.

It was his first day in his art class for that year but usually it was the same students who always applied for it. Feeling the dull ache in his muscles, he simply sat on the desk, crossing his ankles, not really bothering to look around the room. “Good morning and happy new year and condolences and whatever they say given the circumstances,” he smiled slightly, searching in a pile of papers; his students who already knew his style and moods, smiled along with affection. “You’re always the same here and I doubt anyone else has shown interest but I probably should read the catalogue anyway for typical reasons, because  _Javerrrt_!” he growled, making everyone laugh. Finally, he seemed to find the correct piece of paper. “Here we are,” he muttered lazily, leaning on his elbow on the desk in a  _draw me like one of your French boys_ manner, reading the names mechanically as the children raised their hands in the air to declare their presence. He was glad to finally be in a class where at least students did not care for his socio-political slash philosophical slash addiction views, if not in a class where students actually liked him.

_Blaise, Marie._

_Guyot, Simone._

_Feuilly, Marcel._

_Pinard, Gerard._

_Thibault, Antoine._

_Valjean, Cosette._

He reread the list, feeling his palms getting clammy. That was wrong, a mistake. It couldn’t be.

His eyes scanned the name again and again, and he wondered how drunk he really was.

_…Enjolras…_

_Enjolras._

He noticed that his voice was shaking slightly. “That’s must be a typo. Feuilly, you’re friends, aren’t you? He isn’t coming to this class…”

His talented ginger student shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t tell me anything of that sort.”

Grantaire’s breath calmed steadily. It was a typo. Imagine the rebellious teenager studying about romanticism…

Wait, Delacroix. No, maybe he would.

Just when he was about to get up and ask his students to take their charcoal out of their bags, the door was blown wide open and he burst in the classroom, a tornado of bouncing, golden ringlets, wearing a leather messenger bag across his white polo t-shirt which brought the faint flush of his rosy cheeks out even more, causing Grantaire to freeze at his seat. His glowing eyes immediately scanned the room for Feuilly and he rushed to grab a seat beside him. The whole classroom was silent, Grantaire’s stomach emptied uncomfortably. He wasn’t ready for this, not for another argument, not for disapproving, challenging glances, and expressions of disgust, at least not  _today._

“You’re late,” he muttered.

“I came,” was the boy’s response in a calm yet bold voice.

“Last time we spoke you didn’t seem that interested in art,” he smiled, immediately regretting it.

“Of course I am,” snorted the boy. “Art serves the noblest causes of people in the most gracious and effective of ways. It is one of our biggest and most important channels towards any kind of change in the social structure.”

Grantaire noticed that when Enjolras spoke, apart from a couple of students who tended to roll their eyes or exchange exasperated looks, everyone else in the room stopped and listened captivatedly. “Art doesn’t serve values, ideas and causes –at least  _true,_ non-provocative art doesn’t. Art doesn’t have a role,” he snorted. “Art is the most oppressed, dark side of ourselves which we’re afraid to show and accept. Its sole purpose is to help us not get mad… Or to help us lose our sanity way faster.”

Some students laughed but most of them started shouting, mostly disagreeing, Feuilly and Enjolras included, but Grantaire raised his hands in the air. “Alright, that’s alright. This is not debate class, take out your charcoal…”

He had to admit that one of the few rewards of his job was to walk between the desks, watch the students working, some of them completely hopeless but some others having considerable potential. He only got bitter when he remembered his own fate and pictured their dreams as doomed, but that didn’t diminish the bliss of a sight such as the frowns of concentration on the young faces or the sounds of the pencils and the charcoal scratching against the paper at all, at least when it wasn’t  _him_ struggling with the muse he had lost somewhere in a sea of alcohol…

He watched Enjolras from a distant as he struggled with the charcoal. It was obvious that he hadn’t attempted to draw or sketch since kindergarten. Feuilly often leaned on his side and helped him.

Grantaire walked near his desk and lowered his head so that no one else could hear him mutter gently: “Do you know anything about art, Apollo? Do you have a favorite artist? Maybe a favorite painting?”

The boy raised his eyes and Grantaire noticed how flushed his cheeks were. “ _Don’t call me that_ ,” he snapped. “Liberty leading the people is a quite excellent painting, in my opinion, based on the July Revolution of the 1830.”

“Of course,” Grantaire turned his grimace to a smile. “And Marianne’s appearance helps, doesn’t it?”

A look of disgust prevailed upon the young face. “That’s sexist, you know. And gross.”

It was Grantaire’s turn to blush and shudder. “Maybe, I’m sorry.” He leaned closer to the desk where Enjolras was struggling to give life to a few smudges on his paper, and he noted warmly that there were grey stains on the boy’s chin and rosy cheeks as well. “Listen, I don’t mean to sound judgmental. I’m just trying to help. If you want to attend this class for your own reasons, I may teach you what the others already are familiar with rather quickly. I mean… you  _do_ seem annoyingly bright. Just give me a sign when you need to be helped.”

“Thanks,” muttered Enjolras after a few seconds, his voice slightly softened.

These were the only words they exchanged for a while. Enjolras attended the classes religiously, Grantaire had learnt that he was an example of a student even though he always got caught in the wildest arguments with teachers, getting up from his seat and walking out of the classroom several times. He didn’t ask for help though he  _was_ improving, slowly but steadily, as possible as it could be for a person with zero artistic talent whatsoever, but a well hidden vivid imagination. Grantaire assumed that Feuilly helped him, and he soon noticed that the boy was becoming an expert in history and theory of art, probably studying on his own.

Soon after the brief period of peace, they started arguing systematically. It was all they did, really. Enjolras took the debatable issues very patriotically, most of the time, and even though Grantaire’s awe and slight fear towards his student had not disappeared, he know found amusement – _pleasure-_ at doing his best to piss him off, not losing a chance to sarcastically point out the youth’s naivety.

One of their arguments in the end of September was epic. Enjolras got up, his hands covered in aquarelle after calling him a drunkard, and burst out of the classroom, his blond curls swishing furiously, before slamming the door behind him. The whole class had frozen, expecting Grantaire to give him detention.

It was the strangest, most painful moment in Grantaire’s life. He had indeed drunk quite a lot last night and he could feel the disgusting aftertaste of the alcoholic mixture in his breath. He felt like a cold bucket of water had been thrown on his face, yet his cheeks were burning and his insides seemed to empty slowly. Suddenly he felt more useless and pathetic than ever before, he felt anger filling him towards the stubborn child and suppressed, painful fear.  _Would he talk to him again? Would he stop showing up to his classes? Would he keep trying to draw? Would he offer him another word, another smile?_ Suddenly, a twisted, pathetic part of himself wanted to punish him in a more intimate, possessive way instead of making him stay after school and write lines. His fingers longed to wrap around his polo collar and shove him against a wall, he needed to shout, to demand that he’d stop.

That night, Grantaire drank again.

Enjolras returned to the classroom. Grantaire knew it had been his fault and he apologized. Enjolras sighed and gave him a small smile of acceptance. Grantaire smiled back. He couldn’t have asked for anything else.

He realized that when he loved explosions of dark, meddling shades and abstract images, Enjolras went for bright colors and defined outlines. He watched him painting with a proud smile, spots of oil colors on his face and hands, sleeves raised, revealing lithe wrists and slightly defined muscles on his arms, white teeth biting red lips in concentration, glowing eyes fully dedicated to anything he was occupied with. Even though art clearly was not his biggest interest, Grantaire found himself awestruck at his conviction, his passion and faith towards everything, values and traits he would never himself dare to touch. Enjolras started asking for help, for opinions, for titles to read, for brands of equipment to buy. Sometimes he stayed after class and they talked, disagreeing from chocolate –bitter versus milk- to classical philosophers –Grantaire’s favorite.

Sometimes he felt that the sole purpose of Enjolras’ presence in the class was to change Grantaire’s opinions and make him believe in everything he didn’t. The mixed feelings this twisted assumption gave him, confused Grantaire so much that he wanted to smash his own head against a wall after drowning them completely in absinthe.

One afternoon Enjolras had stayed to help Grantaire tidy the easels. “So you’re part of an organization,” the teacher muttered, feeling his pulse growing quicker. He gathered a few paint-stained newspapers from the floor and held them in his hands.

“I  _found_ the organization. With Combeferre and Courfeyrac…” the boy spoke while Grantaire’s eyes were fixed on the same spot; first on his own callused fingers, paint stuck under his bitten nails, then on the letters of the greyish recycled paper. Spots of black and red paint hid some of the words and the rest of the letters were bouncing in front of Grantaire’s eyes…  _Chemical attack… Damascus… turning point… allies… Syrian government._ The boy’s voice suddenly grew muffled, distant in his buzzing, throbbing head.

“You need to open your eyes before it’s too late…” he heard his voice muttering. “The history books on the shelves are always repeating themselves.”

Enjolras chuckled awkwardly. “What’s that, R? ABBA?” he asked in a rare comical outburst which would certainly make Courfeyrac proud.

“No,” said Grantaire hoarsely. “It’s the truth.” He let the newspaper fall back on the floor and turned around to face the boy. “People sacrifice themselves in countless revolutions again and again for absolutely  _nothing._ ”

“Revolutions are never for  _nothing,_ ” Enjolras protested, bright rosy spots stamping his smooth cheeks. “What is better? To sit back and watch your world collapse, people being oppressed, suffering, rights being vandalized, struggles of the past blown up in the air?”

“Be alive…” Grantaire mumbled after turning his glance away.

“You’ll never truly be alive if you don’t stand up and shout. No person who lived only for himself and didn’t even defend his existence ever was. You’re a cynic!”

The silence that fell for a few seconds was palpable. It was raining outside and suddenly the drops that patted the foggy windows of the classroom almost seemed to be shouting at them rhythmically. “A cynic has nothing to prove, not to the others, not to himself. He is a free man.”

“He isn’t,” said Enjolras boldly. “He is entrapped of his own chains of not believing.”

Grantaire turned around, the corners of his thin, chapped lips curled into a small, bitter smile, his icy blue glance weary yet tender. “A cynic takes the decision to live with what he believes in instead of dying for it.”

Enjolras remained silent for a while and Grantaire could feel his own heart pounding in his ears. “You believe in nothing,” the boy yelled at last.

Grantaire took his backpack in his hands and slowly walked to the door, his eyes fixed on his boots. When he reached the corner of the classroom, he raised his eyes. The room was empty, dark, as the skies were full of clouds. Only Enjolras stood in the middle stood between the desks, in his beige trench coat and red Converse, and for a moment it seemed like he had stolen all the light from the room, like his passionate body had confiscated all the oxygen for his own. “Nothing’s gonna change my world, Apollo…” whispered Grantaire.

Enjolras froze at his place. Their eyes locked for a while, stormy blue autumn seas meeting with burning fires.

"R…” the boy breathed, “This is a battle, a war, and the casualties could be our hearts and souls.”

Grantaire walked out of the classroom, allowing the dull, rhythmical thumping of his boots to pale every other thought away.

_____________________________________________________________________

Sometimes when he drinks things tend to happen so quickly, a complete haze in fast forward. He forgets what he’s done, what he’s said, what he’s drunk. One moment he’s laughing horribly, sarcastically, swearing and boasting loudly, and on the next moment he’s throwing up in the toilet of her greasy bathroom, and she’s throwing her arms around him and brushes his curls out of his clammy forehead, and before they know it it’s over, before they know it he’s already disgusted with himself.

Some other times he drinks and everything suddenly happens in slow motion.

The keys don’t really want to fit in the keyhole, maybe the door hates him, maybe that’s why it’s creaking all the time. It takes a while for the penetration to happen, and when it does he exhales deeply in relief. The doorknob seems to turn by itself and his boots seem to be leading him in the tiny shithole that serves as his ‘studio’. The door takes a while to close behind him and finally slams shut. He kicks one boot off with his feet, then another and his own heartbeat seems to slow down as he pulls his beret off his head and shakes his wild locks like a dog trying to dry its fur. His expression is numb as if he’s stoned, his blue eyes dull, embraced by deep dark bags and his lips slightly parted as he examines the small room, a few canvases resting against the wall, a dozen of unused full buckets of paint, an old chair and papers scattered all around his easel. The only really used things seem to be the empty beer bottles in the other corner of the room, a patched mustard blanket, and the wooden floor itself, which is covered with stains in various colors.

His green beret twirls a little in the air, taking its time before coming to land on the blanket, near a paintbrush and an old pizza box.

He stands in the middle of the room for a while, numb and limp, concentrating on the sound of his own breathing. He bites his lower lip, pulling a little skin and runs his fingers through his knotted hair. And then he sits.

The pencil seems to have its own will as it slides against a new canvas that’s already on the easel, seeming to have been expecting him. The curves, lines and shadows take life before his eyes and the figure unfolds in grey and white: perfect ringlets, burning eyes, passionate lips, Greek nose, defined collarbone, strong arms…

He’s epically fucked. He knows he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Courfeyrac and Grantaire's conversation while they are climbed on their desks is quotes from 'Dead Poets Society'.  
>  _You have to always be drunk..._ is from Charles Baudelaire's poem, 'Be drunk'.  
>  _A drunk mind speaks a sober heart._ -Jean Jacques Rousseau.  
>  _Nothing's gonna change my world._ is from the Beatles' song 'Across the Universe'.  
>  _This is a battle, a war, and the casualties could be your hearts and souls._ -Dead Poets Society.


	2. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eponine laughed hoarsely, bringing her cigarette back on her dark lips and sucking in the grey smoke greedily. "It’s not that bad to be jerking off to a hot student every once in a while, I mean, what else would be the perks of being a high school teacher?”
> 
> This was just wrong in every possible way.

 

It was nothing but pure awe and admiration for the boy’s extraordinary talents and skills, for the strength of his character and the fire that burnt in his soul, in the place of a trembling candle which had long ago been quenched in his own.

Yet he knew this could be interpreted in so many wrong ways. He noticed the thoughtful looks he received from Combeferre and Feuilly, Enjolras’ friends, even though Courfeyrac still tried to flirt with him and Jehan had made efforts to approach him, with a smile and a kind word about the change his class had brought to his friend. He knew that Javert could place all the wrong things in his mind. He was afraid.

He didn’t know what he was afraid of. He just knew that he was.

Éponine had the night off from the bar on Thursdays and usually they spent it at his place, watching  _Fight Club_ and Cannes festival nominees… sometimes porn as well. They smoked until the room resembled a kiln and drunk until they couldn’t remember their names, curled together on his couch, her feet with the kitsch half-faded pearly purple toenails resting on his lap.

That Thursday night she decided to investigate the rest of the apartment. After mixing some drinks in the freezing, filthy kitchen and sighing at the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink, he heard her feet thumping on the cheap mosaic of the corridor. It was too late before he could stop her: she had gone in the studio.

He found her inspecting his draft on the canvas with narrowed eyes, as if she was trying to remember. “You’re drawing again…” she whistled at the sight of the beautiful young man in pencil who was looking back at her. “Now  _that’s_ a good one!” She stopped in the middle of her phrase and shoved her middle and index finger through the thick, dark bun on the top of her head, a strange movement she used to sport whenever she felt thoughtful. “Wait a minute! I know him!”

“You don’t,” he hurried to stand in front of the canvas nervously and hide it from her. “He’s just an ancient Greek…”

“ _Shit!”_ she cackled. “He’s your Apollo, isn’t he? The little student you haven’t stop mentioning!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about…” he muttered.

“Of course I do! Now it makes perfect sense! I’ve  _seen_ him! Last year when you gave me an invitation for your posh school dance, where I’ve met Marius, I saw him! Faces like these are hard to forget!”

Grantaire mentally cursed for inviting Éponine to the school dance, both for the fact that she now remembered Enjolras and for falling in love with dorky Pontmercy, when there were so many other immature, hormonal underage boys and girls to give her wet knickers instead (and make her cry in the nights for, as well).

“What if it’s him?” he said defensively, feeling his cheeks burning. “He’s beautiful, definitely inspirational for an artist, that’s all!”

“Come on, don’t be a butthead,” she laughed hoarsely, bringing her cigarette back on her dark lips and sucking. “You haven’t stopped talking about him since  _ever_. Apollo this and Apollo that…” he mock-mimicked his voice. “You have even started reading Nietzsche to piss him off! It’s not bad to be jerking off to a hot student every once in a while, I mean, what else would be the perks of being a high school teacher?”

“School boys are not my thing, something which could not be said for you, of course,” he said sarcastically. “I would never think of a  _child_ like that!”

She shuddered. “You make it sound so sick and dirty… Should I remind you and I have fucked in the past?”

He ran his fingers through his locks in exasperation. “It’s different!”

“Why? Because I’m a girl?”

“We are best  _friends_! We were both drunk! It was consensual, it was comfort sex! I was a mess and you wanted to forget Pontmercy! You were  _legal_! You were already eighteen!”

“I’m only a year older than him,” she raised a thick eyebrow. “And who said it wouldn’t be consensual now? How do you know he doesn’t have a teacher crush on you? Nobody talked of rape! He’ll soon be an adult who might want you too!”

Grantaire let a muffled cry in order to stop hearing what she said. Everything was wrong in  _so_ many ways. “Stop it, okay? This conversation is over, thank you very much for your tact.” He remained silent for a while. “You don’t know him anyway, he would never want me.”

“Is he gay?”

“As far as I know he has shown no interest for either a boy or a girl at all.”

“Maybe he’s asexual,” she muttered thoughtfully. “But then again, he might still have romantic feelings for you.”

“Why would he?” exploded Grantaire.

“Why wouldn’t he? You’re hot, broke and an artist!”

“I’m not  _hot_! I’m a fuckin’  _mess_ half of the time, I look like a homeless junkie, I’m stuck in the most pathetic world in the Universe –for an aspiring artist- and he has everything! Bravery, conviction, beauty, friends… Look, I’m not planning to get the sack anytime soon, alright?”

“Christ, you can’t stop moaning for how much you hate that job! Where were you hiding all this teenage romance novel angst all this time anyway?” she chuckled. “Come on, I have news to tell you about ‘Parnasse, not to mention that Tyler Durden is waiting for us and our second personalities!” She leaned forward and pressed her half-smoked cigarette between his lips, before placing a sloppy peck on them.

_____________________________________________________________________

Grantaire started avoiding Enjolras. He smiled mechanically when the boy came to show him his progress, full of enthusiasm. He frowned and shot him cold looks when he spoke to him of their organization and their latest plans. He invited him to a meeting and Grantaire chuckled sarcastically, reminding him that he wasn’t a naïve schoolboy. Enjolras seemed slightly hurt. A shadow darkened his glance.

It was another rainy afternoon when he grabbed his backpack and walked outside. He stopped instinctively. Enjolras had stormed out of the classroom and was walking quickly behind him, not allowing himself to run. “Are you avoiding me?” he asked sharply, yet still not shouting.

Grantaire stopped and turned around, feeling his pulse pound in his ears, despite the loud tapping of the rain. He had exited the building and his curls were already dripping wet. “Of course not,” he replied calmly. “Get inside, you’ll catch a cold and your friend –Joly, isn’t it?- will report me to the teachers council.

Enjolras did the absolute opposite and walked towards him fiercely. “You’re avoiding me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“ _You’re_ being ridiculous. Do you think that anyone will care if you spend time with me?”

Grantaire froze at his position. Enjolras’ blond hair was now soaked wet as well, so was his navy sweater. He was stunning. “More people than you think will.”

“Well,” snorted Enjolras, “ _I_ don’t give a fuck. Nobody is going to tell me what to do.”

“I can’t afford losing my job, Apollo.”

“You hate it.”

“I need the money. No money means no booze.”

“Then maybe I should do my best to get you fired,” smirked Enjolras mischievously, and Grantaire noticed how much it suited him. “Come on, I’m buying you lunch.”

It was impossible to stop himself. They were running in the rain, laughing, having pulled their jackets over their heads. Enjolras was covering a couple of thick boots under his sweater. Grantaire took a glimpse of pale flesh on his waist.

“We can’t afford to be seen in any bistro…” he shouted hoarsely in order to be heard through the heavy rain.

“Don’t worry, we won’t!”

They bought sandwiches from a decadent fast food canteen and sat under a bicycle shed. They shared a calm silence while biting and chewing hungrily. “If I lose this job you’ll miss me,” Grantaire accuses Enjolras sarcastically.

Enjolras allows a small smile to appear on his face but doesn’t reply. Grantaire turns his head to sneakily savor a little in his features for a while, finding himself wondering how those drying ringlets would feel under his fingers, how the glimpse of flesh that he took from his waist would be drawn with charcoal… He immediately felt sick with himself and bit his lower lip, drawing blood with a masochistic pleasure. “I had another fight with my parents,” Enjolras said eventually, staring at his knees. They were so close that Grantaire could see every single drying raindrop on his thick, fair eyelashes and red lips, every small freckle on his Greek, elegant nose. “They hate everything I do, they hate my ideas, they hate my activism…”

“Maybe they’re just worried about your safety.”

Enjolras chuckled bitterly. “You don’t know my parents. They hate their  _guts_ , they hate gay people, Jehan has to be careful when he comes to visit, they hate immigrants, they hate the fact that I  _disgrace the name of the family_ with my rebellious  _shit_ … all they really care about is their money.”

Grantaire grimaced. “They sound pretty awful,” he was never one to bother for tact.

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders. “You have no idea how many times I’ve considered running away, but I do care about finishing my education.”

Grantaire nodded. “Wise idea. I stayed until I became eighteen in order to have a decent bed and enough food. I mean, I never had nasty problems with my parents, it was my father who despised me, for not succeeding in math while I was in school and for not trying to find ‘a decent job’ when I graduated. We never had a real fight, I just left one day and we lost contact since then.”

“Yes, but your mother was better, wasn’t she?”

Grantaire turned his head and gave him a distant smile, his blue eyes looking wearier, older. “She was, yes. I mean… she wasn’t an  _ordinary_ mother, she was a hippie. She would literally have adopted Courfeyrac and Jehan, I don’t know about you though, but you would have agreed in some things.”

Enjolras was grinning widely. “She sounds much better than your father!”

“She died from overdose. I was sixteen.”

Enjolras’ smile froze. “Shit…”

“No, it’s okay…”

“I’m so sorry…”

It was the faintest of touches, soft fingers brushing gently against his knuckles, the slightest of squeezes on the back of his hand, yet his heart started pounding frantically against his ribcage. Their knees were touching and his eyes rested there for a while, faded black denim against skinny red, so ironically symbolic that he needed to  _paint it._

“There is a protest on Tuesday. Are you coming?”

“I have better things to waste my time on.” Enjolras pulled his hand away as if he had been hit with electricity. Grantaire turned to face him. “I don’t want you to go,” he blurted out. “Protests can become dangerous.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow. “You can’t stop me. No one can stop me.”

“I know that, Apollo,” breathed Grantaire. “Believe me.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, R.” The boy got up, shoving his hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans –how was there even  _space_? “Sometimes I swear that you’re such a coward…”

And with that, he disappeared in the grey rain.

_____________________________________________________________________

“You said your teacher’s name is Grantaire?”

“Yes, why?”

“There is an art teacher named Grantaire taking boxing classes with me. Young, not older than twenty six, twenty seven.” Bahorel shouted in order to be heard through the crowd’s voices.

Enjolras froze in his place. “What does he look like?”

His older friend shrugged his shoulders, “Black hair, frizzy, a little bony for a boxer but you know, still has the abs and shit, tattoos…”

_Boxer._

_Abs._

_Tattoos._

The sky was so blue for an October morning... So  _fuckin’_ blue. Mocking the people, not sharing their anger and frustration, like it didn’t want to take part in the protest.

_Didn’t want to take part in the protest…_

Eyes.

“Eyes?” shouted Enjolras through the people’s shouts and slogans, raising his sign in the air. “What color are his eyes?”

_Blue._

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” chuckled Bahorel. “Do you think I go around staring deeply into his  _eyes_? It’s his fist I care about the most!” The tall man threw an arm around Jehan’s shoulders, both keeping to walk while cradling their signs. “He’s a good boxer, a rather strong one, but he can be such a dickhead sometimes! A good dickhead…”

Words seemed to escape Enjolras’ mouth before he could hold them back. “A coward, that’s what he is!” he said sharply.

Bahorel raised an eyebrow. “Okay man, whatever you say.” The first year law student admired the younger boy greatly and had been used to every outburst whether it was for social injustice or for his parents, learning not to question his reactions.

One minute they were singing, walking one behind the other, shouting for their rights and their future, full of youth and enthusiasm. Hundreds of people had gathered in the streets. Enjolras never felt more alive than at those moments. His blood pounded madly in his veins, his voice became stronger, his glance burnt like a million suns. Courfeyrac and Jehan were walking hand in hand, sharing a huge, colorful sign about equality. Jehan was beautiful, his braided hair bathed in the light of the few, stray sunrays, dressed in flowery patterns, a fierce, intrepid smile engraved on his usually gentle face. Courfeyrac was literally radiating warmth and faith, bringing even Joly at ease. The thin student was carrying a first aid kit and was walking alongside Bossuet, with whom he was inseparable. Poor Marius had started off as rather passionate and convinced for that protest, though always slightly misguided, but was now being obsessively followed by a girl around their age whom Enjolras was sure that wasn’t in their school. Her dark hair was pulled in a messy bun and her makeup was smudged. She looked rather devoted in the protest too, in a different way. She was dressed in a cropped  _Queen_ t-shirt and a mini tartan schoolgirl skirt, followed by knee high leather boots. Her sign read _Still not asking for it._

Combeferre, on Enjolras’ side, had turned his glance to Marius and the girl. Enjolras assumed that it was because his best friend had always disagreed with Marius on several fundamental issues. The bespectacled boy turned his eyes and their glances met. He gave him a gentle smile and Enjolras could do nothing but return it. With Combeferre he shared a unique relationship, where one single look was enough for them to exchange the most important of opinions. Combeferre then turned his face at the front, raising his sign about education and shouting with the crowd.

It all started when someone shoved Feuilly’s hand painted sign to the ground. The boy had pissed a man opposed to them off because he was the one to give away the pamphlets they had created. Nobody knew who started it, whether it was a cop, a fanatic, an anarchist or a provocateur. It began in a haze and it led to a mayhem. Beliefs and sides did not count anymore, as the protest turned into a riot. Authority and people of any ideology meddled together, shouting, screaming, and fighting. Tear gas started falling and they felt like suffocating, as their fists and knees fled, trying to fight with all the strength they had. In that storm it was where Enjolras ironically found the equality he was searching for, as no social rank, views or state of power counted anymore, in that arena where everyone fought to shut the other’s mouth and no one’s demands were heard anymore.

He saw Bahorel running to break the police barricades, Jehan and Feuilly fighting with a policeman, Bossuet swearing and brawling with another man and Courfeyrac falling on the ground after being kicked on the stomach. A terrified Joly rushed to Courfeyrac’s aid as a pale yet collected Combeferre tried to find them a way out of there.

Enjolras’ heart was racing frantically in his ears. He had no intention of getting out. He was there to fight for his beliefs and that he would.

They had noticed him, they knew he was the leader. The first punch found him on the nose, and he shocked even himself with his reflexes as his fist found a policeman. There was a baton, he fought back, a kick in his stomach, an elbow on his ribs, and then a horrible pain on his forehead, causing the world to spin violently around him.

He didn’t know how to explain it, but his blurry head was filled with an image:  _Liberty leading the people._ And then words, letters jumping furiously on a page:  _fighters… bourgeoisie… tricolor…_ and then  _pyramid shape… same color on dress and neck tie… ochre… large, continuous brushstrokes… light…_

His dizzy eyes met with the sky again as he fell. So blue. He tried to search for Combeferre and Courfeyrac. He heard someone calling his name.

A hand grabbed his arm. He tried to protest. An arm was wrapped around his waist. He kicked, he shouted, his head throbbing dully.

He couldn’t.

_____________________________________________________________________

It was a true miracle how he managed to find him between all those people, to see him bleeding, an angel in red and being there to catch him without a second thought. It was a miracle in first place that he managed to meddle through the crowd, half of his face hidden the hood of his green cardigan, his hands in his pockets, and come out of it alive, unharmed. But then again, maybe that was the whole point. He was an ideological outsider, an eternal spectator of the show. He didn’t believe in anything. They couldn’t touch him.

Before he could manage to consider his actions a dazed Enjolras was already trying to get back but he had grabbed him and carrying him out of the mayhem, unable to care equally for the other students whom he spotted there. Everyone seemed in trouble, no one noticed him ‘kidnapping’ their leader.

The young man’s weight seemed to be but a tiny insignificant detail compared to Grantaire’s frantic heartbeat and the cold sweat which filled his brow and neck at the thought that Enjolras was here, conscious and furious but with a warm river of blood running slowly from his temple, wine red welling out of a Sun of golden hair. Grantaire had never felt more terrified in his entire life, but he was glad to manage to get away from the voice of the crowd, the dry, yellow leaves under his boots being the only sound that he heard as Enjolras now felt too dizzy to resist.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the young man yelled when they both managed to sit down and catch their breath, on a greasy step of some building, and Grantaire was only glad that Enjolras seemed to at least have the strength to protest. His fingers wrapped around the boy’s shoulders, holding him steady. “You’re bleeding,” he heard his hoarse voice, coming out accusing. “You’re an idiot Apollo, such a fuckin  _idiot_! You could have gotten yourself  _killed_!”

The boy had fallen silent as Grantaire dragged an old cloth out of his pocket and pressed it on his wound, which thankfully seemed to be superficial. Maybe the silence was caused by his surprise at the harsh, trembling tone of his teacher’s voice, but then his eyes and tone suggested nothing but sheer disgust. “Who gave you the right?” he hissed quietly, narrowing his eyes in a mixture of pain and hatred. “Who gave you the right to drag me away? What made you think you can control me?”

It wasn’t as if Grantaire had expected gratefulness of any kind, it wasn’t as if being hurt had been unexpected, he knew that he was nothing, the coward, the cynic, seeking acceptance from a brave, young God, but every word stabbed him like a knife as he pressed the cloth tenderly on Enjolras’ forehead and wrapped his fingers around his wrist to feel his throbbing pulse. “Calm down, Apollo. You’re hurt.”

“Leave me the fuck alone!” yelled the boy furiously, releasing his hand from the other’s grip and jumping away, dusting his clothes. “I should be there with my  _friends_! Courfeyrac was in fuckin’  _trouble_! It was Joly’s first protest!”

“And it should be his last one! You’re only schoolboys! You shouldn’t have gone there in first place! I’m  _sorry_ that I took you away without your fuckin’ consent, O mighty one, but I don’t think you’d be able to save yourself and the  _oppressed_ while being fuckin’ unconscious!” Grantaire stood up as well, shouting hoarsely.

“It was meant to be peaceful!” he was forming circles around himself, huffing exasperatedly. “PEACEFUL!”

“That’s how it always is.  _Peaceful._ You won’t change the world, Apollo. The world will kill you instead,” breathed Grantaire.

The silence which fell was palpable. Their eyes were locked, Enjolras’ chest rising and falling quickly with ragged breaths. “Do you know what, R?” he hissed eventually. “You think you own me, but you don’t. Bahorel was right. You’re a fuckin’ _dickhead_.”

Grantaire froze at his place, feeling his pulse pounding in his head. “Bahorel?”

“Yes, I  _know_ Bahorel! Wow, isn’t that  _exciting_?” Enjolras breathed quickly through gritted teeth.

It was like Grantaire had received a punch in the guts, not because he’d ever believe that his friend Bahorel from his boxing classes would mean bad, Bahorel showed his  _affection_  by calling people dickheads. The most painful thought instead was that Enjolras  _meant_ it.

They could hear voices coming near them but Grantaire didn’t have the strength to go away. He felt much calmer when he saw Combeferre and Courfeyrac turning around the corner of the pavement, running towards them. “Thank  _God!_ ” cried Courfeyrac, dried blood stuck under his nose and on his upper lip. “We’d thought they’d fuckin’ killed you!”

It was Combeferre who first spotted Grantaire and the man felt his blood freezing. “Thank you,” panted the boy, “thank you so much!” He turned to Enjolras. “Come, we’re going to the hospital we’ll cover up for you.”

Grantaire couldn’t help but admire Combeferre’s collection and how organized these schoolboys were. Enjolras caught his breath, eyeing his best friend angrily. “Where are the others?” he growled.

“They’re all alright, only a couple of cuts and bruises.” He noticed the angry tone of the usually calm boy’s voice. “It was supposed to be a  _peaceful_ march, we were lucky to get out. Only that barwoman who always runs after Pontmercy seemed to have sprained her wrist.”

Grantaire forgot how to breathe. “The barwoman? Was  _Éponine_  with you?”

Combeferre turned to face him, a little bedazzled. “Yes, I think that was her name. Do you know her?”

“I… Is she alright?”

“She’s fine, she looked quite strong and dedicated. I bandaged her wrist, she might need to have some x-rays…”

Courfeyrac threw his arms around Enjolras. “Come on, let’s go home.”

As he followed his friends away, Enjolras did not bother to shoot Grantaire a second glance.

_____________________________________________________________________

There was a second protest. And a third one. Enjolras had taken a brief taste of the glorious martyrdom and had no intention to stop.

Then next time Grantaire meddled in the crowd, unshaven with dark circles under his eyes, dark curls peeking out the hood of his grey sweater. His eyes searched frantically into the crowd and he found him, golden curls swishing in the air, a fist with a leather glove raised in the sky.

He followed his example and raised a sign he had painted himself above his head, shouting things that he didn’t believe in.

Enjolras never saw him there.


	3. November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sitting on a bench.”
> 
> “…”
> 
> “It’s in the middle of nowhere, really…”
> 
> “Tell nowhere to stay there. I’m coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I'd continue this soon, maybe that wasn't _too_ soon, but nevertheless here I am! I hope you enjoy this chapter and please, share with me your opinions and criticism, especially concerning the characterizations!

Enjolras was sitting on a bench, his arms around his knees, shivering in the dead of the night. He had burst out of the house in nothing but his pale blue sweater which let the cold of November pierce his skin. The shivering of his body also happened to partly result by his utter anger and frustration which he felt for those around him who did not care, who did not think, narrow minds and sarcastic glances, oppressive behaviors and horrible mocking voices… Shouting and slamming of doors with no intentions of dialogue.

He had taken nothing with him apart from his mobile phone. He tapped his foot nervously on the damp wood of the half-broken bench, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He could call Combeferre. He would always be willing to help, even in the middle of the night and his parents were such kind, loving human beings. They would immediately accept him at their home, the only problem was that they would definitely insist on him calling _his_ parents to let them know… he cackled at the idea. As if they cared, as long as he didn’t _disgrace their name_ with his _childish naϊvety_ … Then again Courfeyrac, his other best friend… his parents were almost never in their huge mansion, travelling constantly for ski and leaving their son the opportunity to throw the most epic parties.

However, no matter how much he loved his friends and felt understood by them, for once it was like something should be done differently. He _needed_ something else. Surely a place to spend the night, but without being able to completely understand it, he needed some reassurance of the most twisted kind, some reassurance of the fact that what he did was _wrong,_ some reassurance shown not by glances of admiration and comforting pats on his shoulder, but instead by snarky, drunken comments and distant eyes, blue eyes he could not read, the challenge and task they gave him to try or to not try at all. He needed silence and he needed guilty, sneaky looks of veneration which, for the time being, he could not identify as such.

His fingers moved on their own will on the screen of his phone. There was a beat, and another one as he waited. Finally he heard a sleepy, hoarse voice at the end of the line.

“Please tell me that this is not another socio-politically related rant about how much I ruined your angsty teenage life because if it is, then consider yourself informed for the fact that I’m too drunk for that.”

Enjolras found himself struggling to prevent the muscles of his cheeks to smile at the familiarity of the voice he had ignored for almost a month. “I need you.”

There was a dead silence from the other end, only interrupted by Grantaire’s raspy breaths. “You need me,” he eventually said in a blank voice. “I see. Did Courfeyrac poison _your_ virginal system with something more alcoholic than orange juice? Should I inform your parents?”

“We had a fight.”

“Oh, you had a _fight._ Was it about your bedtime? Did they by any chance take your teddy bear away?”

“I’m sitting on a bench.”

“…”

“It’s in the middle of nowhere, really…”

“Tell nowhere to stay there. I’m coming.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Under no circumstances should Éponine learn that Grantaire was driving his old wrecked Peugeot in the middle of the night with a flushed blond seventeen year old on the front seat. Under no circumstances should _anyone_ learn, actually.

“You know that I’ll probably lose my job, right?”

“You didn’t leave me another chance. Even Claquesous’ insufficient brain would understand after hearing you mention it for seventeen times. You might as well be guillotined.”

“Don’t try to be humorous, it doesn’t suit your prematurely middle-aged expression.” Grantaire pulled the brake in front of his greyish building and walked opened the door of his car. “I swear, if anyone learns about this…”

“Relax, no one will!”

Grantaire turned the key in the creaking door of his apartment, wishing this would only be a good, or rather a _very bad_ dream. The boy walked in behind him and as they entered he immediately felt his face flushing with shame at the state of the single room –apart from his bedroom and the shithole which served as a studio- which he called ‘the porn room’ with Éponine but was actually a terribly messy living room. Papers and bottles were scattered on the floor, the table in front of the TV was covered on a thick layer of dust, and he hurried to hide a pair of boxer shorts behind the pillows of the sofa. Ironically enough he thought that this was Enjolras’ first impression with a teacher’s house. Maybe not very typical. He noticed the boy’s eyes falling on a pile of old, damaged, yellowish books on a shelf near the TV, which obviously had not been touched for a few years. “Schopenhauer?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Are you surprised?”

“Not in the slightest, to be honest.”

“Coffee? Tea? Beer?”

“Coffee sounds good, thank you.”

Grantaire retired in the kitchen and put the filter in the coffee machine, trying to put the thoughts in order in his throbbing, hung-over head. The promiscuous, heavy scent of the coffee which he normally adored and filled the kitchen hardly proved to clear the situation. He subconsciously checked his reflection on the shiny, heavily-‘90s-reminiscence material of the stove. There were hollow bags under his eyes, he was unshaven and his curls unwashed, his complexion was disgustingly yellowish. He had never felt more miserable as he poured the coffee in a mug which at least seemed unstained and handed it to Enjolras, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, casually reading a book as if he hadn’t just run away from his house in the middle of the night.

“You should call your parents.” He took a seat near the boy, nursing his own, comfortingly warm mug.”

“Why? Is it because they’ll be _worried_? Because they won’t, as long as I promise to become a lawyer and continue the name of the family –which means to steal people’s money- even though I already am a _terrible disgrace_ and an _air-headed kid which will never do anything with his life._ ”

Grantaire took a sip of his beverage and allowed the soothing beverage to warm his insides pleasantly. “In all honesty, I don’t give a fuck about your parents’ feelings. I’m just afraid that they will arrest me for kidnapping you.”

“You’re such a coward!”

They remained silent while they sipped their coffee. Enjolras was balancing _Das Kapital_ on his knees, probably consciously on a specific page as he obviously was familiar with the book. Finally, the boy left it near him on a pillow and placed his empty mug on the table. Grantaire had taken a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and placed one between his pouty lips, struggling with the lighter, his eyebrows frowned in concentration.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow disapprovingly. “Smoking kills, you know.”

Grantaire chuckled hoarsely, sucking the smoke greedily. “Doesn’t everything?”

Enjolras examined him for a while. As opposed as he was to smoking, it was true that the cigarette between his thin, cynical lips, gave something unidentified to an image which seemed incomplete until then. The bitter words combined with the scent the boy hated when he smelled it on Courfeyrac, Bahorel and Feuilly somehow suited the man, the thick eyebrows and dark circles, indicating sufferings he couldn’t dream of, the tendrils of transparent grey smoke that left his mouth in the way every dark, bitter remark did, able to hurt and to heal as well, in such peculiar ways, the scruffy facial hair and the wild dark curls, contrasting with his green sweatshirt… Enjolras had no idea of what was happening to him, but he suddenly wanted to touch him, to soothe what he didn’t know that needed to be soothed, and to silently, without words, agree on mutually disagreeing about everything. He wouldn’t dare to admit it, but he somehow needed this now, it was essential for his wellbeing, it was like breathing. The arguments which frustrated him so much, at the same time revived him, made him feel braver, enhanced and strengthened his opinions and arguments.

The young man’s eyes suddenly left his teacher and fell on an abandoned guitar in the corner of the room. “Do you play?” he asked.

Grantaire froze for a while even though his ears and the nape of his neck steadily grew burning red. “No, I… I mean I did. Once. Very poorly.”

“I want to hear you play.”

Grantaire chuckled nervously. “Believe me, you don’t. I haven’t played since I was twenty three.”

“How old are you now?”

The dark-haired man gulped, holding back a sigh. His pulse seemed to quicken abnormally. “Twenty five.”

“Well that’s fine… I mean, I know nothing of music and I’m sure you’ll remember something, two years aren’t long! Please…”

Grantaire had never seen Enjolras so enthusiastic, at least when he wasn’t giving a passionate political speech and it was true that he liked that hidden side of the boy which responded to the young of his age. With slightly trembling hands, he took the guitar that Enjolras handed him on his lap, after blowing the cigarette out on an ashtray, taking his time to press it and crash it under the weight of his callused thumb. “One chord is broken…” he muttered bitterly, letting a small, hoarse cough.

“Try to play something without it!”

It took a while for his fingers to get used to touching the chords again but soon he was caressing them, a youth he thought for lost coming back to his mind, and soon he was caressing them tenderly after tuning it, his heart pounding frantically at the sound of the music which filled the small room again, after three years. It was a true challenge to try and remember how to play with a missing chord at the same time, but it made him feel more alive, and the unusually admiring smile on Enjolras’ face as they were both lost in the nostalgic, out-of-tune notes…

“I love The Beatles…” breathed Enjolras. “This is beautiful.”

That was the last confession Grantaire was expecting to hear. “Hey Jude is my favorite song. When life gave me shit it helped me to pick the shit up and continue…” He immediately regretted his words and abandoned the guitar near him, blushing. “I’m sorry for this…”

Enjolras’ thoughtful glance was fixed on him, narrowed eyes glowing with interest. “I wish you’d talk to me about you more often.”

Grantaire raised his blue eyes and their glances met. An electrifying silence fell in the room and they could only hear their slow breathing. “There is nothing interesting for me that you don’t know about.”

“Isn’t there?” Enjolras’ eyes fell to examine his fingernails thoroughly. “Bahorel told me you have tattoos.”

Grantaire almost choked on the cold now, coffee, he had resumed drinking. “Bahorel should shut his fuckin’ mouth if he doesn’t want his ass kicked.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Will you show me the tattoos?”

The little color which was left on Grantaire’s face completely drained as his breath caught on his throat. “What are you on, Enjolras? Because I might drink frequently but I must assure you from personal experience that drugs are _not_ good.”

“I’m just interested in seeing what you found interesting enough to engrave on your skin for the rest of your life.”

“Sometimes you seem to forget that I’m your teacher in high school.” Grantaire massaged his temple wearily, leaving a deep sigh. “This is illegal in so many ways but it’s Goddamn late and you’re staying here, so let the absinthe fairies save us from Javert’s wrath if he learns anything.” He stood up from the couch. “Come on, you’re sleeping in my room.”

“No, I don’t want to take your bed…”

“Don’t worry, it’s not much more comfortable than the couch, or even the floor, for that matter,” smiled Grantaire bitterly as Enjolras got up and followed him to his room.

When they arrived, Grantaire had already peeked in his closet and handed him a maroon t-shirt which was large on him and would look huge on Enjolras’ slender figure, and a pair of baggy, grey sweatpants. “Only for tonight,” he muttered.

“Thanks,” said Enjolras. “I mean… for everything.”

Grantaire nodded and turned around to leave the boy alone, when he heard a voice.

“R…”

He turned around and his breath caught on his throat. That was something he had not considered, had not ever imagined. Apollo’s burning eyes fixed on a big painting that was hanging above his bed, his slender fingers gently stroking the edge of the canvas. That piece of work had been the last one before Grantaire stopped, drained from any sort of motifs and inspiration, last year. It was a harsh painting, dark grey and green tones, an abstract image of a man smiling bitterly while being executed by eight faceless guards, his body spread against a wall like Jesus on the cross. He would never forget how difficult it had been for him, how many times he had found himself totally frustrated and fed up, how many nights he had been thrown up from his bed in nightmares, rushing to add a spot or two, to lighten a hue and to darken a shadow, how many times he hadn’t known how to continue, what to do next, what he _wanted_ to do.

“You’ve been my art teacher for three months and you’ve never shown me your work in the past…” breathed Enjolras slowly.

“Sorry…” he cleared his throat. “This is just…”

“This is beautiful.”

He had never before heard Enjolras talking with such intimacy for art, that was a thing for his friend Jehan instead, and Grantaire was taken by shock. “You think so?”

“Of course I do, this is great work. His expression, the fallen wrists…” his clumsy attempts to describe what art made him feel for _once_ made Grantaire’s heart race. Suddenly the calm features of the boy grew fierce, tensed, he now resembled more of a strong, passionate man than Grantaire had ever seen him in the past. “If only the system was different, if society was different you could have achieved such greater things than teaching in a pissy high school… If we lived in another world which appreciated passion, originality, dedication…”

“We don’t, Apollo,” breathed Grantaire, standing at the doorway. Their eyes locked for what seemed like eternity, “we don’t.”

_____________________________________________________________________

It was a Sunday and they didn’t have school. He had messily tossed it on the foot of the bed before leaving for Combeferre’s place. A maroon t-shirt which belonged to Grantaire, but had spent the whole night hanging and wrapping and embracing Enjolras’ body as he turned around in _Grantaire’s_ bed, wearing his own fuckin’ _clothes._

It was innocent at first. Tender, chaste thoughts, wondering how Apollo Belvedere would look in bed, more human yet more angelic than ever, his perfect, noble face calm, his fierce features gentle and peaceful, eyelids shut, thick, fair eyelashes heavy, golden locks spread upon the pillow, rhythmical, slow breaths coming out of slightly parted red lips.

He then shut his eyes and suddenly those red lips were brushing gently on his own, he imagined how they’d taste, and his fingers wrapped hesitantly, as if he was in pain, around the maroon fabric of the t-shirt, imagining Enjolras in nothing but this, _his_ t-shirt, long and loose, falling gracefully on his shoulders and collarbone, reaching up to the middle of his thighs, leaving everything underneath a pure, tantalizing mystery, wine red against alabaster skin…

He swore under his breath at the absurdity of his thoughts. He had let this go too far. Enjolras was his _student,_ for fuck’s sake. This had to stop, he was going crazy, the alcohol in his brain had caused a frantic whirlpool, a crazy mayhem of thoughts and images and scents and _tastes_ that had never even touched his lips, he drank much more now, more than ever, he needed to drift into oblivion, he _needed_ to put him out of his mind, he needed to drown every thought into a sea of poison. But he always seemed to float on the surface, like a Venus Anadyomene.

When he remained alone to his apartment he tried desperately hard to get himself distracted. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and drank most of it in what seemed like a sip. His head was throbbing dully but he welcomed the sensation with fondness. Everything seemed to fade in a haze. He kneeled on the floor of his studio and leaned against the wall, biting his lower lip until he drew blood. He tried to occupy himself with tangling and untangling his fingers or biting the black leather cord of the necklace wrapped around his neck but soon, he was breathing heavily, slipping the maroon t-shirt over his bare torso, smelling the faint scent of after shave and coffee and ink, imagining the young man by his side, falling together on the cold, cheap mosaic of his room, lips pressed together and limbs entangled.

Before he knew it, his fingers were sliding underneath the waistband of his boxers, curling hungrily around his cock, enjoying masochistically how pathetic he felt, trapped in a filthy apartment on his own, getting off to a man who pitied and despised most things about him, a man who happened to be his fuckin’ _student_ of seventeen years old. He guiltily savored in the sight his own painting opposite him on the easel, golden curls, red lips and pale skin, eyes burning with passion not for a cause but for _him,_ for Grantaire, not a teacher but an _artist,_ and artist whom that very Apollo worshiped. He tightened his grip around himself, pulling and stroking frantically at first, keeping a pace, throwing his head back and sighing throatily, wondering whether Apollo ever touched himself imagining him in nothing but this maroon t-shirt, sprawled upon his bed with his long legs and firm thighs spread widely, his fingers stroking himself and wishing for Grantaire to be there and do it for him, eyes shut in ecstasy, toes curled and muscles tensed, moaning _Grantaire_ …

He knew it was wrong in every possible way but he didn’t care, he couldn’t think, not now, when every fiber of his body was throbbing violently with anticipation, blue eyes fixed on his unfinished painting, lips parted and breathing erratic, an empty bottle of whiskey lying beneath his bare feet. His other hand wrapped around the fabric of the t-shirt and brought it to cover his face, lips pressing on it in veneration, inhaling frantically, sniffing and breathing in the scent of his Apollo until his head felt light, his fingers moving quickly around his cock, _what if it was Apollo’s fingers, Apollo’s mouth?_

_What if he was now naked in Combeferre’s bathroom, missing him, doing the same to himself?_

_What if he was moaning his name?_

His eyes fell shut and he bit his lower lip again and again. He grunted through gritted teeth, his strokes lost any sense of rhythm, they became savage, laboured like his breath, his heart was hammering frantically against his ribcage, and he greedily dag his nose deeper into the fabric, his features scrunched up in an expression of pain as he groaned _Apollo…_ before his back curled and he spilt all over his stomach, collapsing against the paint-stained wood of his floor.

His breath grew steady again, and his vision could finally focus on the painting on the easel, opposite him, Apollo Belvedere staring back at him in pure disgust and disappointment, who was the cynical Bacchus who dared to touch him even with his _mind_? He was his teacher, for heaven’s sake, his talentless, useless teacher who found relief in the sickest of actions, who blatantly jerked off while smelling a t-shirt he had worn in bed.

He deserved to lose his job. He deserved to end up utterly _fucked up, -_ not that he wasn’t already- because he had dared to savage the pure, untouched idea of the passionate leader, of the youthful Greek God who would despise him in every possible way if he ever learnt, who would never think of him that way, who would never seek relief while crying his name, his _teacher’s_ name. Grantaire hated himself with a passion, he was disturbing, sickening, but there was no way for him to seek for salvation. He was imagining things, he was destroying his already messed up life, for nothing but a maroon t-shirt.

Autumn was full of maroon, the color of wine, because wine grew old and powerful, when men died and perished. Wine mocked men as did autumn, wearing a mask of mourning and melancholy, melodramatizing everything with its falling leaves like a fragile, weeping willow, when autumn really had something sick, pathetic and miserable, nature having a fuckin’ _feast_ in the inside, wine being made while it pretended to be grieving, like a merry widow in black lingerie underneath her veil of purity.

It was autumn, and Grantaire felt sick, pathetic and miserable.                     


	4. December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She threw her hands up and down his waist and torso all over his visible ribcage and slight abs –he was boxing, _of course he was boxing-_ and Enjolras could not take it anymore, the rhythmical beat of the music, the psychedelic notes and the monotonous _sex_ were making his head spin violently, he was suffocating, he needed to breathe, and before he could hear a mutter of “Is she his girlfriend?” he had burst outside the bar, breathing heavily, feeling nauseous and disgusted and painfully _uncomfortable_ in the trousers of his suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this is quite long and that it took me a while and I'm sorry, but have an early Christmas chapter yay! And some DIRTY DANCING!  
> Feedback is much appreciated, thank you very much for reading this!
> 
> The song R and Eponine and dancing is Pass this on by The Knife. You should definitely listen to it!

She’s beautiful. Her eyes are blue and her new hair is bright red. It was black before, then blond, now red. Daddy didn’t like when he saw her, they shut the door of their room and daddy yelled. A lot. He was so angry that he broke a vase or something like that because he heard a smash but she said she had never liked her mother’s china anyway. Daddy was wrong, because she’s beautiful with her red hair. She’s wearing that soft top with the lace and the short leather skirt that’s shining funnily and daddy again doesn’t seem happy, but he isn’t right, he isn’t right at all, because with that skirt she can wear the most amazing, colorful tights and take him on her lap and sing songs. He loves the colors on her tights so much. Sometimes she sneaks him into her room and they stare at her wardrobe, she has all those strange clothes, the leather and the lace and the feather scarves and the glitter shoes in the most amazing colors, and he helps her match them. Daddy can never find out because then he shouts that she’s going to make his son a pussy and then bad things happen.

But now she’s beautiful. Her hair is long and she’s laughing and she managed to cover that bruise she got when she hit her head on the cupboard – _silly me!-_ with some makeup and she’s painting Audrey’s nails and they’re singing, and even daddy’s smiling.

They have a beautiful Christmas tree, high and huge with all those colorful lights and toys on it, and he raises his head and stares with his mouth open. He changed two teeth this year and she’s very proud of him, she bought him a new game with Super Mario and an easel, to help him paint. Daddy said that bad word again, the _fag_ one. She didn’t like it. They fought.

Audrey is wearing her new sweater and jumping on the couch while he is taking sneaky glimpses of the packets underneath the tree, in his Superman pyjamas, wondering if he can guess what Santa will bring him this year. She finds out and he’s afraid, he’s trying to hide but she doesn’t yell, she just places her hands underneath his armpits and raises him in the air, and she’s tall and her hair swish around as they twirl together around the tree, and she looks good, she isn’t ill anymore, that’s what daddy said, she won’t be ill again, that’s what she said and he knows she won’t be ill because she’s laughing and placing kisses all over his curly hair and she smells of chocolate praline and chestnuts and whiskey, he knows it’s whiskey and he doesn’t really like it, but she also smells of that cologne that is very sweet and he scrunches up his nose and she says that he’s cute and he giggles; she doesn’t smell like other mommiesbut she’s _his_ and he likes it.

She whispers “Merry Christmas.”

And she’s beautiful.

** Winter **

_Nothing burns like the cold._

_George R.R. Martin, A game of thrones_

Paris was frozen. There was no snow yet, but the frost was nipping him to the bone, and he couldn’t think of a crueler punishment for not worshipping baby Jesus enough than having to wake up in such an ungodly hour every morning, get undressed and then dressed again in his igloo of an apartment and drive his car in the fog, then leave clouds of white smoke from his mouth while he walked to the classroom.

Winter had come without any warning, only to startle them one morning with thin flakes of sleet, twirling around in the schoolyard. The “12 days of Christmas” had always been one of the worst periods for Grantaire. All the students were already unbearably restless, expecting Christmas vacation like the apocalypse, as if they hadn’t already spent seventeen identical celebrations in their lives, sat on the family table and peeking sneaky glances at the tacky festive shows on the TV while chewing desperately in order to fill the huge gaps of silence between old, judgmental aunts and sleepy uncles full with turkey. Christmas would not be anything special for Grantaire this year –or any other year, for that matter. He found no spiritual value in the celebration and there were only two reasons for him to look forward to the 25th: the first one, was for school to close. He could no longer deal with highly energetic, hormonal teenagers –or with Courfeyrac’s ugly Christmas sweaters, _a different one for each day of December, for goodness’ sake,_ at least the boy wasn’t in his art class _-_ that refused to sit on their butts and do their damn work, or to stop singing the latest Holiday Season pop hits –French pop was _absurd._ The second one, he would get to sleep. And he would get away for a while. That was three reasons, wasn't it?

With every day that passed, Grantaire drank even more. Christmas tended to have that effect on him and for once he wished it was only that. Things were going from bad to worse and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Enjolras was growing better and better in art, their arguments were still there but a little subtler, kinder, more teasing than accusing and even though he had noticed Javert’s narrowed eyes and frowned eyebrows when they met in the hallways, he could not possibly prevent himself from meeting his student outside school, not when the innocent satisfaction in the boy’s face took the form of wild enthusiasm when they met for a coffee. Enjolras always seemed confident enough to inform his teacher on every new action or decision concerning their activism, as if he was trying to initiate him to it. Grantaire always stated what he disagreed with, but never told the boy to stop, he wouldn’t ever _have_ it any other way. Even though he refused to believe in anything Enjolras was talking about, deep inside Grantaire wanted the young activists to prove him wrong, to show him that there _was_ something, that he wasn’t realistic, but merely pessimistic and nothing more.

Both his and Éponine’s apartments were freezing, with no central heating but he at least had managed to afford a portable radiator, therefore Éponine with Gavroche were spending most nights at his place, the three of them bundled up under every blanket they could find. He would drive Gavroche to primary school every morning. He was incredibly jealous of Éponine who got to sleep until the afternoon, what with staying up all night, waiting tables. He would give his _liver_ to be able to do the same but no one would buy it anyway, he would probably have to _pay_ somebody to take his liver.

The 22nd of December finally arrived and he realized that maybe he hadn’t wanted it to come as much as he’d thought. Students from his art class came to bro-fist him or throw their arms around his neck, completely startling him, and for the first year he realized that _maybe,_ maybe he did care for them after all. He wished he could freeze time and keep all those happy, youthful faces like that, Feuilly’s freckled fresh face, Cosette’s angelic chastity, and above all, Enjolras’ Godly fierceness. He could not afford them to grow up and lose that brightness from their features, to forget and regret and become like their parents, or even worse, to become like _him._

When the bell rang and most of the students burst out of the classroom cheering and taking their shirts off –even with the temperature near zero, he should have expected Enjolras to stay back, in his grey V-neck jumper and walk to his desk. Grantaire’s pulse accelerated uncomfortably and he could only pretend to be fixing his notes about postmodernism because he most definitely wasn’t one for goodbyes, and a burning weight had already settled uncomfortably in his lower abdomen, making his body throb dully with melancholy that had already managed to fill him. The thought of feeling so awful at the realization of parting with the younger man only for two weeks made him shiver in horror for the end of the school year which approached them steadily, the small, ticked boxes on the calendar a constant, sadistic reminder of the fact that he wouldn’t see Enjolras ever again, Enjolras who had miserably failed to leave his thoughts for months, Enjolras whose passionate voice he longed to hear every morning when he got into his car, Enjolras who never wished to remind him how useless he was, yet unconsciously he always succeeded, and Grantaire masochistically hung on this degrading feeling, just because it made the contrast between them harsher, and that way he could fully commit himself in venerating the idealist.

“Hey,” he muttered faintly, raising his eyes a little bit, as if he was the student and Enjolras the strict teacher he was afraid of, “ready to have a blast?”

Enjolras grimaced painfully. “If you mean watching the huge capitalistic corporations and church, both of which cheapen and degrade a whimsical celebration that means a lot for many people having a blast, as well as getting dressed like a milord and act like a spoiled, nonchalant brat for my parents’ pretentious and hypocritical-as-fuck charity galas, then yeah, I guess I’m ready.”

Grantaire sighed, raising his eyes in order to meet those dark ones of Enjolras. “Sorry to hear that. I wish I could help somehow.”

Enjolras rested lazily his back against the blackboard. “As a matter of fact you can.” A faint flush had covered his pale face as if he had a fever. Grantaire resisted the temptation to throw his arms around him and pull him closely, mutter that everything would be alright, watching a smile appear on his young face, bury his  nose in those golden curls… “Come to my parents’ party on Christmas Eve,” he blurted out with one breath, as if he was trying not to regret it later. “They said I could bring _friends,_ they didn’t specify anything so technically…”

Grantaire held a hand up, interrupting him, feeling his head spinning slightly. “Wait a second. Are you literally _asking me_ to your parents’ _Christmas party_?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Enjolras, I’m your art professor. You seem to have forgotten that part.”

“You are, so what?” snapped Enjolras in quite offended manner. “I’d thought you’d be more open minded towards us hanging out.”

“You understand that my presence at the party will piss your parents out of their minds, right?”

Enjolras smirked. “Isn’t that the point?”

Grantaire remained breathless for a minute, examining the boy’s mischievous expression as if he was trying very hard to figure him out. Finally he exhaled and ran his fingers through his wild locks, as if that would help anyhow with his mayhem of thoughts to be put in some order. “Listen, Enjolras. It’s not that I don’t value your company but you don’t seem to understand my position. Why don’t you ask Combeferre?”

“Combeferre is coming, as well as Courfeyrac and Jehan,” muttered Enjolras slightly accusingly, “ _in a dress!_ ” he added for the poet, and Grantaire couldn’t hide a smile of admiration. That would _definitely_ succeed in pissing Monsieur and Madame Enjolras off. “I wanted to have you there, it would make me feel better in the middle of all the pretentious ridiculousness.” Grantaire’s heart skipped a beat. “But that’s ok, you don’t want to come, you’re afraid. I understand.”

It was horrible, he hated to see that familiar expression of disappointment on the student’s face, especially when all that he tended to do lately was to surprise him positively in every possible way. He was even working on an art project on his own, and he wouldn’t let Grantaire see it until it was finished but it still made him proud, and all _he_ could do was let him down again and again. “I’m sorry,” he simply murmured, “but you _have_ to understand.”

Enjolras’ expression softened a bit. “Don’t worry, I do,” he said. “Well then, Merry Christmas.”

Grantaire nodded, his heart starting slowly to sink lower and lower in the depths of his chest. “Merry Christmas. And… Enjolras?”

The boy turned around before walking out of the classroom. “Yes?”

“Try to have some fun. Your friends will be glad."

Enjolras gave him a small, half-hearted smile. “I will.”

Grantaire stared at him walking away and disappearing in the hallway, before slamming the door of the empty classroom behind him, and kicking his desk with all of his strength, leaving a muffled growl of pain and distress.

___________________________________________________________________________

It was raining and pouring sleet, the flakes and drops patting dully on the front window of his car as the wipers moved rhythmically before their eyes.

“It’s a good thing I’m not driving,” chuckled Éponine, her eyes following them to from left to right and from right to left. “I’m _so_ hungover and those damn things are hypnotizing me.” She was curled up on the passenger’s seat, her army boots pulled near her thighs, wearing a jacquard sweater she had found in a thrift shop over her second hand levi's. She had recently cut her dark hair short, above her shoulders. He had been absolutely shocked when he’d seen it, but he soon realized that the new retro haircut gave her bony figure and dark eyes a badass, old-school feministic approach that suited her rather well. She had trimmed her dark fringe herself and insisted on giving him a haircut too, after realizing how successful she was, only to be threatened with the confiscation of her booze for a week.

The 23rd of December was a Saturday, and he had been rather ecstatic to finally be able to sleep until the sun would set in the evening, and make up for all his lost relaxation, what with nursing a massive hungover as well, sharing bottles and bottles with his friend the previous night. But no, he had forgotten how enthusiastic Éponine got with Christmas shopping, even though their money put together would be hardly enough for a tin of homemade oat cookies. She had pulled his covers away, shrieking to the top of her lungs, forcing him to drag himself out of bed to the cold, gloomy world in order not to freeze to death in his bed. “I hate you,” he muttered grumpily.

“You might have mentioned that… for eighteen more times today,” she crooned cheerfully.

“You haven’t been counting…”

“You know me. Of course I have. Every time you repeat it equals one time of me denying to hold your hair back and cuddle you and all that shit every time you drunkenly puke in my toilet in the future.”

“You’re impossible,” he groaned, searching for parking space in the crazy, crowded Paris which was full with Christmas lights.

“You love me,” she shrugged her shoulders, peeking on the front-seat cupboard with the tip of her boot.

“Woefully enough,” he cracked a smile, finally finding some place to park his car. “Look at us, we’re such a merry couple in _love_ doing their Christmas shopping.”

“Nah,” she snorted, “just lifelong soulmates and occasional fuck buddies.” She opened the door, leaving a hostile growl at the frost that entered the heated car. “Come on, let’s go be psychos together,” she quoted, causing him to roll his eyes in exasperation.

He had to admit that Christmas shopping was indeed fun. Paris was absolutely stunning in that time of the year, even for the cruelest pessimist in the world. The Champs Elysées were beautifully decorated up to the Arc de Triomphe and the Christmas market was set all the way to Place de la Concorde. Traditional wooden chalets with sweets were everywhere, children were laughing and running around, sitting on Santa’s lap and parents trying to ignore the black roots of his hair, families and couples walking around cheerfully, wrapped in dozens of layers, red and green and mustard, warm colors, beautiful peacoats and boots, rosy faces wrapped in woolen scarves and hats, gloved hands touching the wrapped candies in the market, the ornaments and the gingerbread men asking how much they cost and he felt the urge to try some mulled wine from a stand with Éponine, it was warm and excellent and it immediately cheered him up. They could see the huge ferris wheel, at the Place de la Concorde and they could smell the candies, the chocolate and the baked chestnuts all around.

Shopping with Éponine had always been fun. They entered the most expensive shops of the boulevard and tried on glamorous designer dressing gowns and suits, twirling around and taking duckface pictures with their old cell phones under the shopkeepers’ scandalized eyes, until they got kicked out. He would never forget how stunning Éponine with her caré haircut looked in a ‘20s flapper dress, dark blue and full with tassels, and his heart ached that his money was only enough for him to buy her a 10 euro warm vintage coat from a thrift store –and a feather ‘20s headpiece, he could not resist _this_ at least- when they parted to buy each other their gifts. They met again to eat crepes and to choose a Gryffindor uniform for Gavroche as well as a videogame and a pair of Paris FC socks. They were walking around, their feet already hurting, discussing the plan to take Gavroche to the ice skating rink on Christmas day as, sadly enough they had nowhere else to be, considering the possibility to take Grantaire’s older sister with them.

“Audrey will be staying at your place, right?” asked Éponine enthusiastically. She had always been in great terms with his sister.

He sighed wearily. “She will, for a couple of days, inevitably.” Éponine punched his arm. “Ow!”

“You know you miss her. Very much.”

“She’s the one who became an indie actress and forgot about my existence,” he moaned defensively.

“She’s _busy!_ And she managed to do what she wanted, unlike us, alright?”

“She’s fuckin’ _homeless_ most of the time!”

“At least you know she won’t be while staying with you.”

Grantaire had indeed missed Audrey very much, but for once he wasn’t sure whether he was ready to see her. She would bring back memories he could not face and he wasn’t sure whether he could afford it, not now, not when he already had enough thoughts to darken his days.

Éponine knew. “How’s your painting going?” she asked, chewing on a chestnut, rather casually.

He tried to avoid her glance. “Well enough, I guess,” he shrugged his shoulders.

“You never mention it at all, that’s not like you,” she muttered, cupping his chin with her dried, frozen, gloveless hand, forcing him to turn and face her. “You _need_ to talk about it, about _this._ You need to face it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said hoarsely, turning his head away again.

She seemed ready to punch him in the face, but instead she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Come on,” she said, “I’m going to help you find a present for your Apollo.”

A shiver shook his spine and he was sure it had nothing to do with the cold weather. “Do… do you think I should buy him something?” he muttered. “Wouldn’t that be quite unprofessional?”

She snorted and her words were like a punch in the gut. “Darling, whether you like it or not, your relationship has stopped being professional ever since you started jerking off at your painting of his.” A flushed Grantaire turned to face him, looking terrified. “Yeah,” she waved her hand, “as if we hadn’t noticed.”

“You know I hate you, right?” he moaned, hiding his face in his palms, before following her to the book stands.

“Nineteen,” smirked Éponine and led the way.

___________________________________________________________________________

Grantaire had just dropped Éponine by her place and was ready to take off to return to his apartment when his phone rang. His heart almost stopped when he saw the name _Apollo_ on the screen –having Enjolras’ actual name in his cell phone could cost him his job. He had tried hard to shove the painful memory of their cold goodbye out of his mind. Needless to say, he had failed miserably and the possibility of hearing his voice once again caused his pulse to race and his hands to tremble with anticipation. He quickly picked up, immediately forgetting about what he was _supposed_ to do instead, and mentally cursed himself for the trembling of his voice, as if he was the teenager and not Enjolras.

“Already missed me?” the teasing smile in his voice was audible.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he heard Enjolras’ blank voice from the end of the line. “They’re driving me crazy,” he huffed. “Can I come over or do you fear that Javert will have the Big Brother set up to spy on your apartment?”

“Look, I’m not at home…”

“I have something to give you.” The student’s voice had always been manly and mature, but the conviction and gentleness reminded Grantaire of when the boy spoke of his ideas and causes. He found himself speechless for a while.

“What do you mean you have something to give me?”

“Your birthday present, genius,” snorted Enjolras impatiently from the speaker. Grantaire’s heart skipped a beat as he fastened his seatbelt and reached for the steering wheel. He _had_ bought Enjolras a Christmas present but he had hardly considered the possibility of meeting him during the holidays to give it to him, it seemed too extraordinary, and under no circumstances had it crossed his mind that Enjolras might had bought something for him as well. The thought was terribly overwhelming and he felt like a little boy whose birthday had arrived a month early.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he breathed. “I mean…”

“Half an hour, your place. Have coffee.”

“Yes sir!”

___________________________________________________________________________

Grantaire could easily swear that this was by far the best Christmas Eve –or rather Christmas Eve’s Eve- of his life. He had to admit that he and Éponine had done a great job to make his shitty hole of an apartment presentable, even _cute._ They had put colorful pop art lights on the book and CD shelves of the ‘porn room’, a tacky neon sign (only half of the light working, of course) showing a pinup girl with pouty lips and a Santa costume was shining over the sofa, and there were a couple of gifts for him and his sister under a couple of miserable branches that served as a Christmas tree. All the ornaments were mismatched and Enjolras immediately told him that Jehan would love that tree, consisting by all the nostalgic ‘90s crap he found around his apartment. Some mixtapes, a couple of Nirvana and Queen CDs –his dusty vinyls hadn’t left their shelf- and a couple of PEZ candy boxes, a reindeer, Donald Duck and a penguin. After Enjolras had entered his apartment, he had looked around and breathlessly exclaimed that it was _BEAUTIFUL._

It was the best gift Grantaire could have dreamt of.

They were curled on the sofa and Enjolras was telling him about his horrible parents while nursing two mugs of hot chocolate – _“No coffee today. We’re celebrating?”_ Enjolras had snorted. _“The birth of baby Jesus?” “The forty eight minutes of freedom you get to spend away from those pricks of parents you’ve got”._ It was peaceful, calm, and he felt like he’d known the seventeen year old boy since forever. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to my parents’ party tomorrow?”

Grantaire shook his head. “You know I don’t,” seeing the boy’s hurt expression he rushed to correct himself, “I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to be there for moral support or that I don’t have a good time with you, but glamorous parties with many cougars and plastic surgeries are not exactly my thing.” Enjolras remained silent. “Come on, Apollo. You know I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“Don’t call me fuckin’ _Apollo,_ ” hissed Enjolras but with no venom in his voice, playfully punching his teacher. “What are you planning to do?”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “You already know you won’t like the answer, why do you ask the question in first place?”

“Pissed drunk and miserable in some filthy little bar?”

“Exactly. You win a gold star.”

“You can’t be alone… on Christmas.”

“I won’t be alone. My sister is coming to stay here tomorrow.”

There was a hint of good-natured jealousy in Enjolras’ voice. “Do you have a sister?”

Grantaire smiled and browsed through the pictures of his phone. “Here,” he leaned forward, showing Enjolras a quirky girl with black hair and the same eyes with him, but objectively prettier. There was something pretty about her despite the familiar snark in her glance. She was dressed in a full skirt ‘50s polka dot dress that let more cleavage than needed be shown, but had paired it with pointed cowboy boots and a huge leather jacket that would make Bahorel proud –or insufferably jealous. She was winking at the camera with a cigarette lazily resting between her lips. “She’s an underground actress. Broke most of the time but at least gets to shag enough,” he chuckled quietly. “Sorry, I keep forgetting I’m your fuckin’ teacher.”

Enjolras cracked a smile. “That’s okay. I keep forgetting that too.” Grantaire felt something unpleasantly empty in his stomach, like a bunch of butterflies, or something equally cliché. “You look very much alike.”

After a while Grantaire picked his guitar up. He had tuned it and put on the missing chord, he’d never admit it but Enjolras had made him find motivation in playing again. His fingers rhythmically strummed the chords and he couldn’t hide a smile at Enjolras’ admiring expression. The boy was thin and wrapped in a blanket as his red jumper apparently did little to help with the cold in Grantaire’s apartment, but he didn’t seem to mind. The notes that filled the room were nostalgic, gentle and peaceful and for the first time this year, they both shared the silent thought that maybe Christmas wasn’t too bad after all.

“Happy Xmas, War is over?” smiled Enjolras and Grantaire nodded. “I can’t help it, I’ll always adore the Beatles. They’ll remind me of my naïve youth.”

“You’re still young. And this is indeed a beautiful song with lovely messages about equality.”

“Yes, but Lennon _had_ been a pretentious dipshit for several periods of his life. And Yoko a disgusting whore.”

“Don’t use slurs,” Enjolras pressed his lips together disapprovingly, “it doesn’t matter what his life was like. The messages he gave did change a whole generation.”

Grantaire smiled softly and left his guitar near him. “Do you know what I want to do now?”

“An art history lesson?”

“No, idiot. I want to watch the Philosopher’s stone. It had the best Christmas from all the Harry Potter movies. It’s a pity I don’t have the DVD.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “You’re a baby!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grantaire smirked sarcastically. “Will you eat your marshmallows? Because they’re flirting with me.”

“ _Such_ a baby! And there’s always the _internet,_ you know, if you want to watch a movie.”

“The neighbor changed the password of his wi-fi.” Sighed Grantaire. “Woe is me.”

Enjolras almost choked on his chocolate. “You mean you have _no internet_? How do you live?”

Grantaire raised his shoulders. “Dunno. Eating, sleeping, painting, drinking… Typical caveman stuff.”

Enjolras’ interest seemed stirred. “Painting? Can I see what you’re making this period?”

It was Grantaire’s turn to choke on his chocolate, and he immediately tried to change the subject. “You said you had something to give me?”

Enjolras’ face flushed violently in the dim light of the bulbs.

“I have something to give you too,” Grantaire beamed, dragging his feet to the tree and fishing a small packet. “Happy Christmas!”

Enjolras’ face fell instead of lighting up and his glance travelled around the old apartment. “You didn’t have to…”

“You didn’t have to either. I’m a working man, you’re only a student. We both did what we didn’t have to do, so we’re equal.” He smiled softly. “Open it.”

Enjolras tore the paper carefully, mature even at that and he froze when he held the old book that Grantaire and Éponine had managed to find in the second hand stands. “ _The June Rebellion,”_ he breathed. “This is…”

“Boring? Stupid? Expected?”

“Brilliant. Thank you, R.”

Grantaire couldn’t hide a proud smile as Enjolras handed him his own present. It was thin and had the shape of a book, but weighed much less. The wrapping was perfect. “Thank God Combeferre could help me with it,” started Enjolras in a nervous voice, as if he was trying to delay Grantaire from tearing the paper. “I think I’ve regretted it, but what’s done is done so if you hate it…”

Grantaire was holding a small sized canvas in his hands, and had completely forgotten how to breathe. His heart was pounding frantically against his ribcage and his fingertips stroked the dried paint. He immediately recognized an attempt of copying Viggo Johansen’s _Merry Christmas._ A mother and her little children dancing in a circle around a beautiful, rich Christmas tree, the room only lighted by the candles and ornaments on it. It screamed Christmas in every possible way, it was good enough to understand which painting it was and otherwise a little better than poorly drawn. The proportions weren’t very good but the lighting and colors were still warm and lovely and something fuzzy settled on Grantaire’s stomach.

“Did you paint it?” he asked.

“Yes,” muttered Enjolras’ breathlessly, his face and ears redder than the Santa’s hat on the pinup girl. “Apparently I was conceited enough to think I could achieve anything with some practice, but art does not seem willing to ever cooperate with me,” he raised his shoulders apologetically.

“It is beautiful,” breathed Grantaire, “it is the most beautiful present you could ever have given me.”

Enjolras cracked a small smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m not the tradition type and normally I would detest the family-around-the-tree theme, but I thought that sometimes…” he bit his lower lip in a way which was completely new and unexpected for the fierce, passionate leader, “sometimes you might miss your mother, especially at Christmas. I thought you would feel alone, but now I know you have a sister and I’m happy for you. Because you know, I might have my friends but we _do_ need some family, and even if I _have_ both a mother and a father, sometimes I feel alone myself.”

Grantaire’s heart was pounding madly, he most definitely hadn’t expected such a confession which brought a huge lump on his throat, and before he knew it they had thrown their arms around each other and he was holding Enjolras closely. The younger man smelt of chocolate and shampoo and pine and Grantaire never wanted him to let go, it was nothing but a tiny voice in his head, _he’s your fuckin’ student, for fuck’s sake, how dare you touch him like that, you’re not good enough for any of these, you are pathetic and disgusting and…_

It was Enjolras who pulled away first. “I have to go,” he muttered. “Try not to drink yourself to death tomorrow.”

Grantaire smiled tenderly. “Promise. Try not to blow your parents’ house out.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow as he walked to the door. “No promises.”

They stood awkwardly there for a while until Grantaire cleared his throat. “Well, see you at school then. Merry Christmas.”

Enjolras nodded. “Merry Christmas,” he said, and walked outside.

_____________________________________________________________________

It wasn’t as horrible as he’d expected.

It was much worse.

He was dressed in his pretentious-as-fuck suit and the fact that Courfeyrac kept crying how bangable he was, hardly helped at all. He had been forced to tie his hair back, on the nape of his neck, in a vain attempt to tame it and he didn’t care for Jehan’s reassurances that it suited him, the sole fact that he had succumbed and done it because _they_ had said so drove him crazy.

The decoration of their house had cost them money that could have granted a hundred –or two- people in need their Christmas meal. The golden chandelier were gloriously lit and the Christmas tree that prevailed upon the middle of the room huge, polished and excellently decorated. Enjolras hated it. He could think of nothing but the personal, heartwarming branches in Grantaire’s place. His mother and father whose clothes would provide a homeless person with his food for _a year_ –not to mention her latest Botox- were showing him around with huge, frozen smiles, taking about his future (or the future _they_ had planned for him) and introducing him to other people with frozen smiles and enhanced cheekbones. When he tried to protest, his mothers’ sharp claws dag deeply into his skin, filling his eyes with angry tears.

Enjolras was immensely thankful that his best friends were there. It was impossible for _any_ parent, even Enjolras’, to not like smooth Combeferre with his excellent suit and tie, as for Courfeyrac they did at least like his painfully rich divorced mother and that was enough even for Monsieur Enjolras to swallow a scandalized comment about his pale pink Gatsby suit.  

Jehan had confessed to Courfeyrac a few months ago that he wanted to try on a dress. No one in the group had of course minded his decision, but no one had either expected him to look so _gorgeous_ in it. A black lace corset bodice hugged his slender torso, and several layers of black tulle shimmering with golden thread were flowing gently from his waist. His long, ginger hair was straightened and pulled on a slick ponytail on the top of his hair and in his maroon lipstick and knee high boots he looked like a ravishingly beautiful warrior queen. One could easily pass him for a flat-chested girl, so just for the sake of Enjolras and the danger of being attacked by his parents, they had introduced him to his suspicious mother as Courfeyrac’s girlfriend. Courfeyrac and Jehan actually found it all very funny, and played along, twirling in the dance floor before disappearing in some coat closet.

Enjolras couldn’t stand it anymore. He felt like suffocating. He needed some air so he rushed to the balcony –not that of the dance room, as it was full of disgusting middle aged men courting twenty-something blondes with tiny, expensive dresses, but the balcony of his bedroom where no one could find him.

The cold, piercing air that hit his face immediately helped his head clear up a bit. He rested against the balcony and took deep breaths, shutting his eyes and rubbing his temple. He needed this to stop. He desperately needed to get away, from his parents, for their house, from _him,_ he needed to stop thinking about everything, he needed to get blue eyes and dark curls and mischievous smiles out of his mind, he _couldn’t,_ it was all too confusing and he couldn’t speak to anyone about it. He thought he would explode.

Inhaling greedily in the freezing air, he had hardly realized he was shivering, and he was startled when he heard steps behind him and a gentle, warm voice. “I thought I’d find you here.”

He turned around slowly, only to face Combeferre, caring, kind Combeferre, who had brought him his coat and wrapped it around his shoulders. “You should get inside,” his best friend said softly. “It’s freezing out here.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow and he might have looked incredibly miserable, because Combeferre let a small sigh. “You can’t?” Enjolras shook his head. “I know. It isn’t exactly pleasant.” The bespectacled student grimaced painfully. “Actually it’s bloody awful. Did they try to introduce you to a pretty girl from a respectable family already?”

“Four… Had to hide under the catering tables for a while,” he snorted. “Any news about the meal for the homeless?” asked Enjolras absent-mindedly, staring away.

“It’s going well as far as I know, Cosette and Joly have already cooked two cauldrons to contribute with, and Bossuet with Courfeyrac bought sweets and pastries.”

“We’re going to the shelter tomorrow to volunteer, right?”

“Of course we are. Feuilly will go from dawn and we can join him later so that you can get some sleep.” Combeferre smiled cheerfully. “A long day is awaiting for us. Remember the eco-Christmas speech outside Lafayette?”

“Of course,” nodded Enjolras. “I have my part ready. For the solar powered Christmas lights.”

“I know,” Combeferre said with amusement. “For over a month now.”

“Thank you for your present,” said Enjolras, still looking away. “It’s a quite beautiful scarf. You know how I like red.”

Combeferre raised an eyebrow. “You always forget your scarf and I figured a gift from your childhood friend might remind you.”

“It will, thank you.”

“And thank _you_ for your present, such a beautiful annotated edition of the _Symposium_!” They fell silent for a minute and Combeferre gestured to the balcony door leading to his room. “Remember all our games in here?” he smiled nostalgically.

Enjolras turned to face his best friend. His brown eyes were warm and always comforted him, he felt safe and whole around Combeferre. He managed to crack a small smile. “How could I ever forget? The pirate ship, Robin Hood, that time we made a revolution and my stuffed animals were the Jacobins…”

Combeferre shuddered in horror. “Or that time when Courfeyrac decided that the dog was a horse and he was Napoleon just to piss you off… And the numerous times we built barricades with your mother’s furniture…”

Enjolras frowned slightly. “ _Your_ mother always let us borrow her furniture. Let’s not talk about what my own did when she found out…”

Combeferre chuckled softly. “It was good times. Soon we’ll be graduating…” They fell silent for a while and he noticed Enjolras’ darkened expression. Genuine concern took over his glance. “Are you alright?” he asked softly. “Lately I feel… I feel like you aren’t telling me everything. Like something is troubling you.”

Enjolras turned to face his friend, a flush spreading from his cheeks to his neck. “I’m fine, ‘Ferre. Nothing is troubling me.”

“It’s Grantaire, isn’t it?”

Enjolras froze at his position.

“You don’t have to feel bad…”

“He would never!” the blonde snapped. “He’s not like…”

“I know,” Combeferre interrupted him reassuringly. “I just hope you both know what you’re doing. I trust you,” he rushed to add, “and just know that if you ever need to speak to someone…”

“Thank you, Combeferre,” said Enjolras more softly. “I appreciate it.”

“Do you want to get away?”

“Yes, please,” he muttered breathlessly.

 “The others are waiting for us at a bar Bahorel suggested, Corinthe. It will be fun.”

Enjolras nodded. Bars hardly ever appealed to him but he longed to get away and see his friends.

“Come on inside, you’ll catch a cold. I’m going to cover up for you to your mother and you go find Jehan and Courfeyrac.”

Enjolras hesitated. “Are you sure you can deal with the shrew?”

Combeferre shuddered and patted Enjolras’ shoulder. “Trust me my friend, I would pick dealing with your mother anytime rather than dealing with the lovebirds in a closet.”

_____________________________________________________________________

They met the others at the metro station. Joly, Bossuet and Marius had apparently drunk more than they should at some family gathering and were now giggling uncontrollably and singing ABBA on the top of their lungs. Marius was pouting his lips and slurring _Take a chance on me_ to Cosette, who apparently found it sweet instead of repulsive and disturbing, as for Joly, he was showing Bossuet a freckle on his side with much seriousness. As for Feuilly and Bahorel, they were both in hats (Feuilly a patched beret and Bahorel a non-ironic top hat paired with boots and a fitted t-shirt even in the freezing cold) and were holding their liquor much better, even though while they all walked to the bar, they both started singing Christmas carols on the top of their lungs, Bahorel putting swear words instead of the actual lyrics and Feuilly singing normally but with an excellent bass voice that made every passer by turn to stare.

Enjolras was already feeling so much better, and for once he decided to _have fun_ with his friends.

Corinthe was a small dark bar in the corner of an alley that didn’t fill your eye, but when they entered it was rather atmospheric. Disco lights were going on and off, causing Joly to protest he was growing dizzy until he spotted a curvy waitress with chocolate skin and started doing the robot while Bossuet did Travolta to catch her attention. The music was not what Enjolras liked, which was quite easy, considering the fact that he mostly listened to Vivaldi while studying and writing his speeches, but it was captivating in a bizarre, monotonous manner, making him feel slightly drunk even if he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol. He was feeling cheerful, or at least energetic. He was with his friends.

Until he heard them. Bahorel whistled. Jehan cried “Is that _him?_ ” sounding unexpectedly manly in his dress and perfect makeup, Marius croaked "Eponine!" and Courfeyrac said something incoherent in a strangled voice. It was only when Combeferre muttered “It’s her,” and then his expression grew cautious as he turned to face his friend, that Enjolras turned around and _saw him._

His heart leaped in his chest and a huge lump immediately swelled on his throat. Everything grew blurry around him apart from those two people in the middle of the dance floor. Every sound grew muffled apart from the rhythmical, stupefying music that beat monotonously in his head.

He was dancing in the middle of the room, going dark and light again and again from the disco lights. He seemed in some strange state of ecstasy. His head was tilted back, showing off his long neck and the small curve of his Adam’s apple, shining with a thin layer of sweat. His eyes were shut and his thin lips half parted, his black curls wild, swishing around, some of them damp and plastered against his forehead and nape. He was wearing a black V-neck tight t-shirt that clang with sweat on all the right parts of his toned torso, a silver collarbone peeking from the neckline and his arms, oh _his arms,_ strong muscles pulsating with every movement as he had them thrown around _her,_ and the _tattoos,_ they were both covered in two colorful, fierce sleeves of tattoos that shone in and out of darkness rhythmically. He was dancing in a ravenous manner and Enjolras couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe because they were dancing like _sex,_ her hair was short and she swayed her head around in a psychedelic manner, her red lips parted and he felt Combeferre swallow near him. She was wearing a loose burgundy t-shirt over her thin body and a leather skirt that was so tight and short and clung around her thighs perfectly, showing off her long legs that disappeared in a pair of army boots. Her body was bent and her waist broken, her head tilted back as he pulled her waist near his crotch and God the leather, he was wearing leather boots and _leather pants_ that hugged his firm hips which swayed around in a way that should be illegal, perfectly entwined with her own lithe body and they seemed like he was taking her _right now, right here,_ his tattooed arms waving flexibly, pulling her closer as they curved and uncurved their waists against each other, covered in sweat and taking greedy breaths through parted lips. She threw her hands up and down his waist and torso all over his visible ribcage and slight abs –he was boxing, _of course he was boxing-_ and Enjolras could not take it anymore, the rhythmical beat of the music, the psychedelic notes and the monotonous _sex_ were making his head spin violently, he was suffocating, he needed to breathe, and before he could hear the mutters of “Is she his girlfriend?” and "He's a fuckin' _professor_!" he had burst outside the bar, breathing heavily, feeling nauseous and disgusted and painfully _uncomfortable_ in the trousers of his suit.

Combeferre didn’t come searching for him this time and he was only thankful for the fact. He wanted to kill him – _them._ Or he wanted to die. Or shove his hand under the waistband of his trousers and swear and curse and spit and _scream,_ scream his name, the name he needed and hated, a letter, _R,_ he needed to cry and release and breathe and collapse.

Instead of his best friend, it was him that came outside a while later, all flushed and sweaty and breathless. “Woah,” he raised an eyebrow, looking hurt and Enjolras _hated him,_ he _hated_ those huge bright blue eyes with the small wrinkles around them, he hated the cigarette that Grantaire fished for in the pocket of his fuckin’ _leather pants._ “I just saw you, were you planning to leave without saying hello? Merry Christmas? Something?”

Enjolras turned and stared at him, his head throbbing dully with the blood that boiled in his veins, his throat dry and his pulse pounding against his meninges (and his _cock)._ “Are you having fun?” was the only thing he could croak.

“Loads,” muttered Grantaire, sucking in the smoke of his cigarette with an amused, bewildered smile. “Hey, you okay? You look flushed.” He reached to press a cold, damp palm against his forehead.

“Don’t touch me,” hissed Enjolras. “I’m… I’m sweaty.”

Grantaire backed off, looking surprised. “So am I. What’s the matter? I care for you.”

“And I don’t give a fuck about you!” snapped Enjolras out of nowhere, breathing heavily and crossing his arms like a spoilt kid.

Grantaire narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow, taking a slow drag of his cigarette. “Good to know?” he said. “Look, it was very nice to see you but I have to go back inside and take ‘Ponine’s keys. She’s working in the bar all night and I promised to babysit her little brother.” He gave him a small, crooked grin that _tasted_ of sex, horrible, excellent, cold and heated sex. “Have fun. Merry Christmas. For the third time.”

He turned around and disappeared into the crowded bar. Enjolras kicked the wall with all the strength of his foot. “ _Merry_ _fuckin’_ _Christmas_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they are both so fuckin' frustrated that IT HURTS MY SOUL!!!!11


	5. January

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re a bloody teacher. Teach me how to dance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man I hate Grantaire in this chapter. I can't really blame him but I still hate him. Poor E is so OOC but he's a teenager so I guess he's much more passionate than adult E.  
> WARNINGS: underage drinking and smoking  
> I appreciate the feedback and suggestions so much! Thank you in advance for sharing your opinions!

It was the most horrible New Year’s party Enjolras could ever imagine.

He had quarreled with his parents in the morning concerning his future and they had not spoken until the party they had to attend in Courfeyrac’s mansion. He knew that his relationship with his parents had come to a halt. People could go on and say that it is impossible for one to _really_ hate his parents but as much as Enjolras was a man to care –for the people, for freedom, for equality, for nature, for progress, for his friends- he already was perfectly capable of proving them wrong. He absolutely despised his parents and their selfish, pretentious ways, now more than ever. He was still obliged to pretend everything was alright at Madame de Courfeyrac’s party, and he could only be thankful for the fact that his best friend was there. Monsieur and Madame de Courfeyrac hardly even cared for what their son was doing as long as he was not meddling with the private matters of _each_ of them, so without any trouble they managed to announce that they were leaving to meet their friends before the change of the Year, earning only a “Have fun, darlings” from Courfeyrac’s tipsy mother and a sickeningly sweet smile from his own.

It was freezing outside. The first thick snowflakes had started twirling in the sky and landed on their noses and eyelashes where they melted, leaving a wet sense of frost. Enjolras pulled his long black coat tightly around him. That and the suit his parents had forced him did not succeed in keeping him from turning into an ice cube, and soon his teeth were chattering and his nose dripping. Courfeyrac was walking beside him, chattering cheerfully about Jehan and their photography project. Enjolras’ head was full with thoughts, so that he nodded to everything his friend said without really listening.

Until he caught Grantaire’s name.

“What? What did you say?” he muttered, trying to sound neutral.

“This is ground control to major Tom,” Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow. “Have you actually been listening to a single word that I’m saying? Anyway, I was saying imagine if Grantaire and his barwoman friend are at the Corinthe again today! Both of them were damn hot on Christmas Eve, I still can’t believe the dude’s a teacher and I know that a gentleman never kisses an tells, but if you two are fucking I would seriously appreciate it if you informed your best friends so that we can have some new masturbation material!”

Enjolras felt his cheeks burning despite the cold weather and the snow around him. “Are we going to the Corinthe again?” he asked, his hands slightly trembling even in his leather gloves.

“Sure, Bahorel is such a regular client that he always manages to get free drinks!” Courfeyrac shrugged his shoulders. “Such a cool little place! Not to mention that Joly and Bossuet fancy the other barwoman, the one with the curves! Hey,” he nudged Enjolras’ arm. “You know Grantaire and he knows the skinny barwoman! We might earn even more free drinks that way! Think you can do anything about it?”

Enjolras nodded absent-mindedly, his insides emptying uncomfortably. There was a chance that Grantaire would be there that night. They hadn’t spoken since Christmas Eve and Enjolras wasn’t sure whether he was ready to see him tonight. Images of his sensual dancing with the barwoman had already started filling his mind and a painful, burning feeling –could it be _jealousy-_ was blinding him.

Courfeyrac’s voice brought him back to reality. “Hey, did you hear the story of the Christmas sex with Jehan under the Christmas tree? Christmas sex is always the best sex!”

Courfeyrac’s place was further from Corinthe than was Enjolras, and he could only feel thankful when they got off the metro and found the rest of their friends, before walking straight to the bar.

The barwoman was already there, standing behind the counter with her short hair pulled on a small bun on top of her head. Something jumped unpleasantly in Enjolras’ stomach. He couldn’t dislike her, he didn’t even _know_ her, but she had style, she wasn’t good looking but she was unique, her eyeliner heavy and defined around her dark eyes, her lips dark red, matching perfectly with her red leather dress. On her bun was a feather headpiece and Enjolras couldn’t stop staring.

He thought he would be the only one to notice in horror that she spotted them and shot a small grin –was she _mocking him?_ \- but apparently Pontmercy noticed as well and tightened his grip around Cosette’s arm, leading her to the dance floor where, in everyone’s dismay, he started doing the Gangnam style and _Combeferre_ of all people seemed to fix his glance on her and… _flush?_ When Enjolras realized that she was walking out of the counter and towards them, he felt the need, for once in his life, to drink. Bahorel and Courfeyrac provided him with a couple of shots more than eagerly, and when she reached them, with the same, mischievous grin on her face, Enjolras’ inexperienced head had already started spinning slightly.

“Hey,” he shouted in order to be heard through the music and the noise. “I’m Éponine! You’re R’s students, aren’t you? I saw you here on Christmas Eve!”

Courfeyrac, one for the personal relationships immediately took the chance to beam at her. “Nice to meet you, Éponine, I’m Courfeyrac and this is my boyfriend, Jehan!” Jehan smiled in his green sequined shirt and purple skirt –he found that experimenting was excellent after Christmas Eve and did not lose a chance to try new things on, as long as his friends supported him and found him beautiful, never caring for what other people said. “This is Bahorel, dancing over there with that blonde, he takes boxing classes with R. Not all of us are his students! Only Feuilly,” Feuilly nodded with a small smile “and Cosette, the Rapunzel dancing with that dork.”

Éponine turned her head and pressed her lips together in a thin line. Enjolras hardly understood anything at all, as he accepted another shot from Bossuet, unable to control his actions. “Yes,” said Éponine, “Marius and I have already met.”

“And of course,” Courfeyrac had a proneness for dramatics, and seemed to have purposefully left Enjolras for the last, “dear old Enjy over here is his favorite student! I’m sure he has even deflowered him but my best friend keeps denying it whole heartedly!”

The murderous glances that Courfeyrac received both from Combeferre and from Jehan caused him to cry “WHAT? Can’t a man just _joke_ these days?” but Éponine’s whole attentions were already turned upon Enjolras. Her smile seemed genuine and that confused and angered Enjolras even more even, though a small, still sober part of his mind knew he was being ridiculous.

“Apollo,” isn’t it?” she asked. Enjolras almost choked on his fourth drink. He couldn’t believe that Grantaire’s girlfriend-fuckfriend-fiancée or whatever the fuck she was had the cheek to use _his_ nickname, Grantaire’s nickname, the nickname Enjolras hated with all his life.

That caused him to grab another drink from Joly’s grip, despite Combeferre’s warning and alarmed glance.  “It’s Enjolras,” he replied coldly.

“I know,” she nodded cheerfully, “he won’t shut up about you.” Enjolras felt his cheeks burning –maybe it was the alcohol in which his blood hadn’t been used- “He’s a very good guy, R.”

Enjolras nodded, feeling his throat burning with the alcohol, his eyes watering slightly. He couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Is your boyfriend coming by later?”

At first she looked puzzled, and then the most absurd of things happened. She burst into laughter. “My _boyfriend_? Grantaire? He’s my best friend, a brother even, but he is queer as a three dollar note!”

_Best friend. Brother. Queer as a three dollar note._

_Was Grantaire gay?_

Enjolras wanted to dance. He wanted to hug someone, _kiss_ someone. Her, Combeferre, _anyone_! A huge weight left both his chest and his head, he was feeling light, everything was so light, she was beautiful and funny and Combeferre and Courfeyrac were the best friends in the world and Jehan was looking stunning in his skirt and glittery makeup and Marius and Cosette made such a sweet couple, as for Joly and Bossuet he sincerely hoped they could get to meet the other curvy barwoman tonight! “It was nice to meet you, Éponine!” He didn’t know whether it was the alcohol speaking for himself. “Oh, by the way here’s my best friend, Combeferre.”

Éponine winked playfully when she met with Combeferre’s startled eyes. “Enchantée,” she said in a hoarse, throaty voice and he smiled, muttering the same as they shook hands. “Hey Combeferre, I need to return to the bar now, old filthy customers are waiting to get drunk, lay their disgusting hands on my ass and have them chopped. Would you like to come and dance a little or drink something together? Your tipsy friends can come too, Musichetta will be rather excited to meet them!”

Combeferre seemed particularly shy and serious at first impression, but Enjolras knew that he was fond of meeting new people, and Courfeyrac had noticed the way his best friend had been eyeing Éponine since that day she had joined Marius in the protest. Combeferre shot Enjolras a concerned look but Enjolras gestured that he should go, mouthing _I will be alright._ Feuilly’s presence near the blonde immediately assured Combeferre, so he followed Éponine into the crowd.

Enjolras didn’t know why he continued drinking. Was it the psychedelic disco lights and the monotonous beat of the music, messing with his already dizzy head? Was it the fear and uncertainty when he first spotted Éponine, now replaced by sheer relief and intoxicated excitement? Was it the fight with his parents and the fact that all his friends were now having fun in a place where he felt like a complete outsider, alone in the middle of a crowded, noisy room? Or was it Grantaire, Grantaire who was on his way to the bar, Grantaire and his leather pants, Grantaire and his swaying hips, Grantaire that cared for him and laughed at him and looked like sex?

But he drank. Combeferre came to check on him twice but he managed to pretend he was alright so now Combeferre was dancing with Éponine, a wide smile and a bright flush on his face. Courfeyrac was snogging the fuck out of Jehan in some dark corner and no one else, not even Feuilly had tried to prevent him from drinking, deciding that Enjolras should have fun for once, especially on New Year’s Eve. He had tried to find Bahorel in order to ask for a cigarette but the huge man was already cornering the blond girl he had been dancing with, so Enjolras tattered his way back to Feuilly. His friend showed his concern in first, stating that Enjolras _never_ smoked, but he wouldn’t be the one to deny him the pleasure of trying _just for once,_ as he was the one of their group to smoke obnoxiously much.

Enjolras choked on his first drag, feeling like he was suffocating. His lungs filled with smoke, his head spinning and throbbing with the alcohol, the room spinning slightly around him, a chaos of faces he didn’t knew, of sweat and legs and hips moving, of couples wrapped around each other, drinking and smoking and all that Enjolras could do was cough on the horrible cigarette between his lips…

“What in the name of _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” he heard a growl behind him. He knew from the painfully familiar voice who he was going to face when he turned around. His eyes were so blue, he was wearing the same leather jacket and he had done an attempt of plastering his wild dark hair on the back of his head with some kind of gel. He was smelling of smoke and whiskey and Enjolras felt a wild excitement at the thought that for once he was smelling the same.

Grantaire’s fingers got wrapped around his arms. He looked shocked and Enjolras could only chuckle. “Jesus _fuck!_ You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“What if I am?” slurred Enjolras. “Isn’t that what _you_ always are?”

“You’re underage, for fuck’s sake!”

“Don’t pretend you ever _fuckin’ cared_ for that when you drank _,_ to use your _fuckin’ language,”_ Enjolras raised an eyebrow.

Grantaire shook Enjolras’ shoulders. “I hate to see you like that,” he hissed, “this is… for me. For Éponine. _You_ are not a mess. You are… perfect. You can’t drink. You can’t bloody _smoke_ and then choke your own lungs out!” He looked around, trying to find someone between the dancing crowds. “Listen, Éponine is waiting for me…”

*

“Teach me how to dance.”

Grantaire had fell asleep on his liquor and was having the most horrible nightmare, or the most glorious dream. He didn’t know yet. He didn’t know how this could be happening. Enjolras, serious, mature, perfect Enjolras, the leader of an activist group, a brave young revolutionary with faith and passion, _drunk, smoking, choking on his cigarette_ …

Yet he was not a mess. No, it was Grantaire’s area of expertise to be a mess. Enjolras could never be a mess. Even now, in that absurd, extraordinary situation, he was the personification of youth, of freedom, of an inexplicable grace and charm, he radiated a fire that was burning within every cell of Grantaire’s body and every fiber of his soul. Grantaire wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to hold him, yet he wanted even more to take him away from all this, to keep him clean, pale, innocent and terrible in his very own, untouched way, like on the canvas in his room.

“You’re a bloody teacher. Teach me how to dance.”

And just like that, Grantaire consented to his own destruction, leading the young man who had consumed his every dream and thought for the past three months to the dance floor and throwing his arms around his waist.

It was heaven. An odd kind of heaven, burning and fierce and dark, with disco balls instead of clouds and blue skies, a heaven that smelt of cigarettes and alcohol and sweat. Maybe it was hell. The most glorious, sacred hell of marble, youthful skin and golden rays of hair. Enjolras was the most stunning thing he had ever touched, the curve of his waist underneath his fingertips, his firm, lithe hips, the pale, sweaty hollow of his neck, his parted red lips, wet and glorious, pulled in a small smile, his eyes shut in ecstasy. He was not a good dancer, nowhere near as good as Éponine who was eyeing them with amusement and pleasant surprise behind the counter chatting with _fuck, was that Combeferre?_ but he was beautiful and sensual and Grantaire wanted to _paint him,_ like that, not chaste and virginal like he had already done, but gorgeous, free, flying on the dance floor of a shitty bar even though he didn’t belong there.

Before he was able to suck as much as he needed from the unexpected bliss that had surrounded him, everything ended. It ended and it _hurt,_ he couldn’t allow it to end, but people had stopped dancing around him and the lights were off, he couldn’t see anyone, he couldn’t see Enjolras but he felt his skin near his own, he felt the warmth his body radiated and then everyone started shouting as if they were accusing them, synchronized with the violent pounding of his heart.

_Ten_

_Nine_

 “You dance very well.”

_Eight_

_Seven_

 “You’re drunk. I can’t believe you’re drunk.”

_Six_

 “Role reversal doesn’t suit you, R.”

_Five_

 “I don’t care. You’re drunk. And you’re beautiful. A piece of art, so _beautiful_. I don’t believe you exist and I hate every second when these lights are off so that I cannot see your face. I hate you.”

_Four_

_Three_

 “No, _I_ hate you. I hate you so much. You’re beautiful and you can’t see it, you can’t believe in yourself, you can’t believe in this.”

_Two_

“Shut up.”

_One_

“You shut up.”

…

_“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”_

They didn’t know who did it first, who pressed his lips on those of the other’s, all they knew is that it was _them_ and they were one and they were together, lips against lips, teeth clashing in a violent revolution, tongues fighting together, dancing like their bodies did, fiercely and full with passion and need. It was harsh, their chests pressed together and neither could breathe anything but each other, each other’s flesh, each other’s taste, each other’s scent, eyes widely shut as if they were in pain, hearts ready to erupt and Grantaire thought he was going to explode with need and love and _fear,_ colors and lights were already exploding around them anyway like paint on an empty canvas in Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, making love above the kissing and shouting friends, lovers, partners, enemies, the Year had changed and nothing, nothing was the same, nothing would ever be the same again.

Because it was them, they were Enjolras and Grantaire and they were kissing, and it was the most glorious and terrible thing that could ever have happened to either of them.

They broke the kiss to seek for air, they were covered in sweat and they were panting, they knew that everybody had seen them yet they were alone in the bar, in the _world_ , alone with each other, Jehan and Courfeyrac kissing passionately somewhere in the crowd, Joly, Bossuet and the barwoman in a laughing, bizarre complex of arms and limbs, Bahorel with a girl and Feuilly with another, Combeferre and Éponine tasting each other slowly, their hands cupping their faces and sliding through hair as if they were alone as well, the world seemed to be turning frantically around them, a New Year, a New fuckin’ beginning isn’t that what people said?, yet Grantaire felt stuck, his heart was pounding so loudly in his ears and he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he could only stare at him and fuck he was _beautiful,_ so beautiful…

“I’m sorry,” was all that he could mutter and he was, he was so sorry, guilt was burning through his meninges, remorse was tearing him apart like a murderous beast, just a boy, _only a boy,_ a God, Apollo, how could he have touched him, who gave him the right, _those lips,_ how could a mortal have tasted the nectar right from their silk…

Enjolras was beautiful and Grantaire was elbowing his way between the crowd. Grantaire was fucked.

And Grantaire ran away.

*

Grantaire slept. He slept for hours. He woke up on what officially was the first day of the year, somewhere in the afternoon, maybe early evening, his head heavy and throbbing and feeling ready to throw up. And then Grantaire drank. He drank shots, glasses, _bottles._ He drank without stopping because for once he felt alive and he couldn’t, Grantaire needed to die again, just a little bit.

Éponine found him curled around the toilet. She held him until he heaved up the poisonous contents of his stomach in the way he’d done to her when it had first started with Montparnasse, while she was still in school, in the way she’d done with him when his mother died and she was only a child, in the way they’d done for each other numerous times in the past, the same ritual of muttering incoherent nothings, wiping each other clean with gentle movements and stroking damp, plastered hair, wrapped together, just the two of them, on the cold bathroom piles.

Now it wasn’t just the two of them. They weren’t alone. Combeferre was at his place, getting ready for their date at the movies. He had escorted her home, reminding her for a while that she was still a girl of only eighteen and a half years, having prematurely grown up because life had been a bitch. For once after all these years, Éponine was happy, smiling. Still scared, insecure, hostile, and suspicious but _smiling,_ and Grantaire wanted to feel happy because Éponine was happy and he loved her but he couldn’t, because Grantaire was fucked.

She hadn’t seen them kissing, she was too busy kissing gentle, kind, soft Combeferre and she gave him all the details of her excitement before demanding to know what had happened between Grantaire and Enjolras and why her best friend was in such a state. She swore, she cursed, she said that if the spoilt brat of a schoolboy did anything to hurt her best friend she’d cut his balls and hang them as a trophy on his bedroom but he managed to convince her that it was alright, he was alright, she _knew_ that he got like that all the time and yes, he could babysit Gavroche in the evening.

His blood still seemed to be replaced with alcohol when he wrapped his fingers around his brushes, even after throwing his guts up. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he just needed to finish what he had once started.

The stunning figure of Apollo Belvedere took life underneath his brushes, colors making passionate love on the canvas in a completely new, riotous manner, in the way their lips had touched the previous night. There still was white, gold and pale blue but now there was more red, more black, a burning fire surrounding the Godly figure, dark eyes staring back at him in disgust and adoration at the same moment.

God.

What had he done?

*

Enjolras called again and again. He texted him, sent a voicemail. Grantaire didn’t pick his phone up that night. He stayed with Gavroche and did his best for the boy to have fun, playing videogames and saying scary stories before having a Harry Potter marathon. They fell asleep until next morning when a glowing Éponine came to pick her brother up. When Grantaire woke up, he didn’t paint.

He didn’t paint for a very long time.

Enjolras stopped texting and calling.

Days passed. They seemed like years, but they were only days. He didn’t paint. He just drank.

*

School opened and the yard got covered in a thin, white layer of snow. Younger students forgot the sorrow of returning to classes and laughed around, fooling themselves with the temporary pleasure of playing in the snow. Some of the seniors followed their example. Courfeyrac, Joly and Bossuet were building barricades with the snow for a snowball fight and Jehan and Marius seemed eager to help.

Enjolras, however, no matter how tempting the idea of building a barricade –even out of snow- would have seemed to him in the past, was unusually quiet, spending the break from his classes underneath the bicycle shed, together with Combeferre.

He knew that his best friend was happy even in his collected, reserved manner. Combeferre’s face lit up whenever some of the others mentioned Éponine, but he wasn’t one to speak about his love life all day and he had said very little to Enjolras. Especially when he had realized from the first moment he’d seen him that something had gone incredibly wrong. He hadn’t pushed him any further when he understood that his friend didn’t feel like speaking.

“We kissed,” Enjolras finally blurted out.

Combeferre slid his gloved palm over his brow, adjusting his spectacles on his red nose with a small sigh. “I should have guessed,” he muttered seriously. “Have you spoken about this?”

“We…” Enjolras’ head hung in shame, such an unusual and heartbreaking sight even for Combeferre, who knew him since kindergarten. “No. I made a fool of myself, ‘Ferre. I got drunk and smoked…”

“But you never smoke!” Combeferre’s face fell with genuine worry. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Stop it, I’m not a baby…” Enjolras threw his head back, sighing deeply in the cold. “Or I am. Fuck this, I already know that whatever you may say will be right. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize to me. But you should speak. You need to discuss this.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Combeferre placed his hand on Enjolras’ shoulder. “We both know how strong you are, how clever and wise and… you’re older than your age, Enjolras. You’ve always been. I was too, but in a different way. You know what is the best for you… I trust you.”

Just then they saw Grantaire crossing the yard. “You know what to do,” muttered Combeferre, getting up and turning around before squeezing his friend’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing that Grantaire whispered when he reached closely, causing Enjolras’ heart to leap. “For everything. For being a dick. For trying to ignore you. For kissing you. I don’t even know where to start. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Enjolras could hardly identify his feelings, especially that heavy veil of darkness that seemed to be wrapping him steadily. “Well, the only thing you need to feel sorry about is never contacting me. But I’m sorry too, for being a pathetic mess on New Year’s Eve.”

Grantaire took a deep breath, shutting his blue eyes for an instant before reopening them again. “Listen, Enjolras,” he muttered, looking around carefully. The absence of his ridiculous nickname for once tied the student’s stomach into a tight knot. “I think we shouldn’t have this conversation here.”

“Alright,” Enjolras pressed his lips together, his fingers twisting around a thread of his grey jumper until the circulation stopped. “Meet me for a coffee after class?”

Grantaire hesitated slightly. “Same place?” he breathed, holding the urge to say _our place,_ the place where they had laughed and talked and argued about equality, freedom, society and art.

Enjolras nodded blankly. “Same place.”

Grantaire was already waiting on a greasy terracotta table, when Enjolras arrived, his fair blonds disheveled, his nose red and his cheeks flushed, wrapped tightly in his coat and red scarf, crossing the café with a firm stride and taking a seat opposite him on the table.

“Will you have anything?” Grantaire pointed at his own coffee.

Enjolras shook his head. “Don’t try to be immature, you’re five years older than me. We didn’t come here to drink coffee, we need to discuss this.”

Grantaire let a deep sigh before lowering his eyes and massaging his temple. He poured some milk in his coffee and immediately regretted it as he watched the hint of creamy sweetness dancing with the dark liquid bitterness around his spoon. It wasn’t dark anymore and he needed it to be, especially right now when nothing seemed to be right. “We can’t go on like this, Enjolras.”

The boy’s voice came out quiet, almost strangled. “What do you mean?”

Grantaire shut his eyes as if he had a headache and reopened them after a few seconds. “This is impossible. This can’t work.”

Enjolras had started getting impatient. “Why? Why can’t this work? You make me feel things, things that I’ve never felt before. All I want is freedom and with you… with you I always feel a step closer to it. The way we’re so different yet we _understand_ each other in such a natural way, easier than breathing, everything our conversations give me and I’m sure that they give _you_ too, I saw you change, Grantaire. I witnessed your change in the classroom. You cared more, you helped more, you _gave us_ more. You started painting again! I know you started painting even though you won’t show me what! If only we believe in this…”

“Believe,” sneered Grantaire, raising his eyes from his coffee. His look was terrible, one that Enjolras had not been used in seeing, so different from the usual tenderness and veneration his teacher tended to address him with. His blue eyes were two empty hollows, surrounded by faint wrinkles, the corner of his lips upturned on a crooked, bitter smile, a smile that didn’t quite reach his glance. “It’s always about believing, isn’t it? Listen Enjolras, all of this has been nothing but a terrible misunderstanding. You have misinterpreted my… fondness for you. You were my favorite student,” the word _were,_ so harshly and coldly pronounced felt like it unexpectedly stubbed Enjolras’ insides, “but I can’t lose this fuckin’ job, I need it! You don’t understand, this is illegal, this is wrong, we’re… we’re _different,_ can you see it?” Enjolras opened his mouth to protest. “No, it’s _not_ a good thing. We’re not the… the Éponine-and-Combeferre-different sort of thing. You were born to lead. I was born to follow. You were born to change the world while I was born to stop you…”

“This is the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve ever heard you say,” Enjolras grimaced in an expression of disgust mixed with a hint of pain. “You’re drunk again. And to think I wanted to apologize for getting drunk _once_.”

“How dare you!” Grantaire’s voice was no louder than a hiss between his crooked teeth and Enjolras realized he didn’t know that man, the man on whose bed he had slept, the man he’d kissed and hugged and gave his soul to, a man who inspired him without being inspired and became the cause for him to start painting –painting families dancing around Christmas trees, for _fuck’s_ sake. “I’m still your teacher in case you’ve forgotten!”

Enjolras didn’t know that man. This was a different Grantaire who never taught him or learnt anything from him. “Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching,” he said quietly, his voice trembling with anger, causing Grantaire to chuckle sarcastically.

“So now you’re quoting Oscar Wilde on me, aren’t you? _This_ is why this would never work. Because you’re wonderful, Enjolras, but a boy. You’re just a boy.”

Grantaire’s words echoed like a gunshot in Enjolras’ head. He threw himself up, grabbing his backpack, a vein throbbing visibly on his temple as he whispered “You never believed in this,” and burst out of the shop.

The teacher remained there, glance of steel, body frozen, staring to the door of the small café. A whisper would have been louder than the words that Grantaire didn’t dare speak, only pictured painted on the greying wall opposite him, red paint dripping like blood from the cement, painted everywhere for everyone apart from Enjolras to see. “I believe in you.”


	6. February

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then they were pushing each other back on the desk, throwing papers and books and notes all around the floor, struggling with curls and fingers and limbs that tangled together tightly as Enjolras wrapped his leg around Grantaire’s waist and pulled him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for taking so long to update and for the fact that this is awful but the writer's block is terrible and instead I'm consumed in writing one shots and crying over dead Dothrakis please don't judge me uwu

Classes went on without them exchanging another word. Enjolras skipped some –it wasn’t that he ever really cared for the rules in first place- and Grantaire hardly ever noted his absences, risking for someone to find out and cost him a warning from Javert. The art teacher walked around the desks, his shoulders slumped in his parka coat which he didn’t take off in the cold classroom, his step tired, peeking a few looks at those works that really deserved it, muttering a couple of encouraging words to Feuilly and Cosette. Other than that, he didn’t even dare to throw a glance at Enjolras’ general direction whenever he attended, driving the young man absolutely furious.

Oscar Wilde had once written that love was a silly thing. Not half as useful as logic, for it did not prove anything, and it was always told one of things that were not going to happen, and making one believe things that were not true.

They were silent while the other students walked out of the class when the bell rang that day, Enjolras already used in the same ritual, pretending he was gathering his stuff and helping to tidy the classroom a bit from the scattered collage clippings and the pieces of charcoal in order to make the work of the cleaning ladies a tad easier. He had always admired the way in which Grantaire cared for them and did his best not to leave a bombarded classroom behind, even though he didn’t have to clean his students’ mess, even though he always looked like he didn’t care for any of these.

Grantaire felt numb. He wanted this to end, every second of being in the same room with him was torturous, he didn’t care how or why, he just needed this to end right now. He felt more alive than ever but in the most painful way. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but it was a dull, monotonous beat like the tapping of the water dripping from a badly closed faucet and it portrayed winter perfectly: it was going to be long, cold and uncomfortable. The darkness would never end, or maybe in a million years as it seemed. _Leave. Go away. Leave me alone,_ he repeated inside his head, hoping that his thoughts would jinx his student away. Apollo was still a God, but a misguided one, youthful and innocent and lost whose light was fading steadily. A sneaky glance could grant him with the painful realization that the passionate, bright boy was in misery, the young man who was willing to fight everything, allowed this – _him-_ to bring him down and suck the faith out of him.

Their glances met across the classroom. Enjolras was standing near the teacher’s desk. Around them, a chaos. Paint, colors, newspapers, collage pieces. In the middle, him. Lips forming a thin line, eyes cold, harsh, unreachable, fists clenched and held near his black jumper as the same red scarf was tightly wrapped around his neck, hiding it and causing Grantaire to curse his brain because he was trying to picture it again, the smooth curve of his throat, the deep hollow and his Adam’s apple…

He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t strong enough.

He crossed the class with a firm stride and stood before him. Enjolras was only slightly taller and he looked at him with an inexplicable expression which Grantaire read as hatred, disgust, disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” was all the professor could breathe. “I’m sorry but I can’t.”

Enjolras made a step closer. “You know what? Neither can I. I _can’t_.” His fingers got wrapped around the wool of Grantaire’s maroon jumper, causing him to heave a small gasp as their faces come closer. “I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t stop fighting. I can’t just accept a goddamn fate, I don’t believe in it. I can’t spare myself your sarcasm, your laughter, your wisdom and tenderness that you try so hard to hide. I can’t stop fighting, I’ve never stopped in the past. I can’t let go off something that’s made me feel free, made me feel different, taught me things other than what’s written in books. Don’t ask me to try because it’s selfish and because I can’t.” He was breathing heavily at that point, almost panting, and so was Grantaire. There was a pregnant silence, only filled by the rising and falling of their chests that almost touched with each other. Enjolras’ voice came out merely as a husky growl. “I can’t stay away from you anymore.”

And then they were pushing each other back on the desk, throwing papers and books and notes all around the floor, struggling with curls and fingers and limbs that tangled together tightly as Enjolras wrapped his leg around Grantaire’s waist and pulled him closer. They were kissing each other breathless, as if they were going to die any minute, any second then, their lips were moving together in a violent frenzy of remorse and blame because they needed this all along, even before they learnt about each other’s existence and they’d been stupid and they couldn’t step back from what was drawing them together. Their lips were cold as were their cheeks and palms, but Enjolras’ throat was burning beneath fingers and he fought with the red scarf, trying to reveal a streak of flesh and feel a pulse throbbing invitingly at his touch.

Enjolras moaned against Grantaire’s lips and it was such heavenly a sound that the dark-haired man needed to melt into it, to feel it repeated again and again against his neck, his wrists, his knees and hipbones. _He_ was the one to be causing such a perfect man to moan in pleasure and pain and that felt like his biggest achievement throughout this whole pathetic excuse of a joke that seemed to be his life. He sighed in delight, pushing his wet tongue deeper between through boy’s parted lips, exploring every corner of his warm mouth as they rolled on the desk.

The door was shut yet it was insufferably dangerous and painfully intriguing. It was Enjolras who broke the kiss first, even though he was the one to first start it. “I need to…” he tried to catch his breath, sliding off the desk and stepping on his feet, his hair disheveled and his cheeks flushed as he fixed his scarf around him. “Don’t step back now,” he said but there was no poison in his voice, “don’t be a coward.”

And for once, Grantaire realized that he wouldn’t.

*

“I’m afraid that your work does not seem to meet our expectations the way it used to, Monsieur Grantaire.”

“Excuse me sir, but I don’t think I fully understand what you’re implying.”

“I’m _saying_ that it has come under our recent attention that you have quite altered your methods lately and your teaching plans diverge from the program our high school has performed throughout the past years.”

“Some progress never did any harm in education. Plus I don’t think that the students really agree with you.”

“That would be because you hardly enforce any discipline at all. You barely are a teaching figure anymore. Your methods have become… should I say _anarchic?_ ”

“I let my students improvise, create as they please, freely express themselves without a strict program. That’s how art _works_ apparently, you know.”

“Your job here is not to rudely talk back.”

“I still had rights in this job, last time I checked.”

“…”

“…”

“I’m in the unpleasant position to inform you that you are under supervision.”

“Yes, Monsieur Javert.”

*

_Get out._

They told him to get out. They yelled that on the top of their lungs, actually.

He obeyed.

It was quite ironic, really, that for once in his life he did as he was told.

The snow had melted but it was still freezing outside. The wind was blowing wildly, echoing blatantly in his ears as he walked quickly, his pulse throbbing in his meninges, looking back every once in a while as if someone was following him.

Nobody was.

They didn’t care. It sounded absurd but he knew they didn’t. They would, eventually because under no circumstances would they allow him to run away before getting off age, but for now they had their own affairs to care for.

He knew that Combeferre had a date with Éponine. He knew that Jehan was helping Courfeyrac with his photography project. He somehow knew, though, that even if his best friends had not been busy, right now he wanted there to be no other solution but to go to _him._

And stay, at least for the night.

It took a while for Grantaire to unlock but finally he appeared on the doorway, rattled and confused, his expression drowsy and his blue eyes slightly puffy. It was obvious that Enjolras had woken him up but his teacher immediately looked shaken and alarmed when he saw him.

“Get inside, you’ll turn into an ice cube,” he croaked, pulling him by the arm, catastrophic scenarios crossing his mind briefly but soon vanishing in thin smoke.

It wasn’t that Grantaire’s place was much warmer than the streets outside. Enjolras shuddered when he found himself standing in the middle of the ‘porn room’, realizing that he still needed the coat he had just discarded on a couch, and Grantaire rushed to bring him a blanket but Enjolras stopped him with his hand. “Before we do… anything else,” he said casually in a way which could either mean drinking some chocolate and falling asleep or –it was Grantaire’s turn to shudder- have violent sex against every surface in the apartment, “there is one thing you owe me. And you can’t get away with it.”

Grantaire turned and faced him with obvious confusion on his face. He was in a huge green hoodie and a pair of paint-stained grey sweatpants. “And what exactly would that be?”

“Show me what you’re _really_ painting. Easy as that.”

The blood froze in Grantaire’s veins. He couldn’t afford that. It would be nothing less than baring himself completely and revealing every side of his soul in every possible way. “I can’t show you. It’s bad, really bad. I… I haven’t painted for over a year and now it all seemed… fuck.”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, you’re not escaping this, I’m serious. I’m willing to search your flat.”

“You’ve crossed every possible limit, kid,” Grantaire exclaimed breathlessly but in a half-hearted manner. It was already too late. Enjolras had crossed the small corridor with a firm stride and entered the only room he hadn’t visited yet, the small studio with the newspapers and the buckets scattered all over the floor, the rubbish that summarized Grantaire’s whole messed up being, the bottles and pizza boxes abandoned everywhere, the mustard blanket and the dried brushes. Grantaire could not bewitch Enjolras’ eyes, he could not get in front of his sight, he could not drive him blind for that single moment.

Enjolras had seen.

His eyes met with his own reflection on the easel, as if he was staring to a faded mirror that was set on fire. Burning eyes that stared back at him, _his_ eyes, sunkissed locks flying in the wind, a silver collarbone, round shoulders and long fingers, a body, _his_ body, curves and muscles protected innocently by red. A red sky, red flames, a sea of red licking his long limbs and feminine feet. He didn’t know what to say. His heart seemed to have stopped, the whole world seemed to have stayed still in order to give him some time to realize what he was seeing.

“I’m sorry,” was what escaped Grantaire’s lips and it was but a wretched whisper of a heavy, scarred heart that was sinking lower and lower.

“Don’t speak,” Enjolras breathed, “don’t you dare ruin this moment for me.” He held out his palm for him and as his head turned around slowly, his hair tousled and his cheeks rosy, he couldn’t resemble anymore of the boy on the painting. “Take my hand.”

And Grantaire did. Hesitating, afraid, disbelieving, yet he reached for Enjolras’ hand and they clasped tightly. They both turned to face the painting and stayed quiet for a while.

Then Enjolras turned to face him. “I want this to _be_ something,” he whispered, leaning closer and feeling Grantaire’s raspy, warm breath on his skin. “ _Us_ to be something.”

Grantaire’s blue eyes were shinning fervently as he spoke, cupping Enjolras’ smooth cheek with one palm. “You are everything I have always needed to worship.”

“I don’t need you to worship me. Needing me is enough,” Enjolras’ eyelids slid shut as his breathing quickened and he pressed his palms on Grantaire’s chest.

“It feels like I’ve known you forever,” muttered Grantaire against the corner of Enjolras’ lips, feeling the younger man breathe “I know,” before capturing his lips in a warm kiss, slower than everything else they’ve shared, chaste and slow and lazy. Grantaire’s flexible tongue came to lick behind his teeth, to tangle and untangle with his own, his teeth nipped greedily on his lower lip and Enjolras’ lips parted to a needy moan. Grantaire’s hand curled around his neck and his fingers twisted around a few curls on his nape. Somewhere on the back of Enjolras’ mind passed the thought that midnight had already passed, which meant that it was Valentine’s Day. Pagan Holiday. Degradation of love. Disgusting commercial. Consuming trick. Social standards pressure. Capitalistic shit.

He didn’t care. They slowly kneeled on the floor without breaking the kiss. They were inhaling in each other’s breath. They were sharing this. It didn’t have to stop, they didn’t need to break it. Grantaire whispered words of adoration against his skin. He said he didn’t believe he could be so lucky to be lying near a God. Enjolras did not understand. _He_ was the lucky one. Grantaire was beautiful, his skin raw underneath his inexperienced fingers, his eyes so blue and young, almost reflecting a faded childhood despite the small wrinkles around them, his lips were chapped and thin and dry but they loved Enjolras, his lips _loved_ him.

They fell asleep on the newspapers, wrapped with the mustard blanket that smelt of cigarettes and croissants and safety. Their limbs were tangled together and their hands met. During the night, Grantaire unconsciously reached for him again and again, leaving small whimpers when he felt him drifting away, and serene smiles when he curled his arms securely around his waist. His teacher now seemed young as he was, innocent and gentle, and Enjolras decided that he’d give him everything he had ever been spared of.

It was winter and it was reaching to an end. Enjolras could feel this. He could feel this because there was a heart beating near his own and it was warm, warmer than the most humid summer. If winters were like that, then it was most likely that they should never give their turn to spring and her sinister ways of seduction, but right now, to the young student, the change seemed rather welcome, so he slept peacefully, ready to wake up to face the alluring season of love that was waiting around the corner.


	7. March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Teach me,”_ breathed Enjolras lowly and Grantaire’ breath hitched on his throat.
> 
> “What?” croaked Grantaire, his knuckles brushing on a smooth cheek. “What do you want me to teach you?”
> 
> “Everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Sex. UNDERAGE SEX. Basically this is what all the chapter is about, oh woe is me. Oh, and homophobic language.
> 
> Ok, shit. Where exactly do I begin to apologize? 
> 
> This has been almost a month when you asked me to hurry even more with my updates :( I'm terribly sorry for the ridiculous gap between chapters, but sometimes I really can't seem to write anything, the writer's block this month was immense and only dissolved with a few one-shots. I went into a horrible sluggish period of procrastination because classes haven't started YET (let's hope strikes will cease this week) and I had no one to force me into a program, nothing to wake up for in the morning and I spent those ridiculously lengthy nights doing absolutely nothing and hating myself when I actually had a million things to do and finish before University started and hundreds of places to go but I didn't even want to shower and leave the house and I spent the last week breaking a little but now it's alright because we'll probably begin classes this week -thank goodness- and I managed to write. I'm sorry, believe me, I haven't been a lazy ass, it just was... weird. 
> 
> Mind you, I'm not satisfied with this chapter. At all. But I don't think I'll be able to produce anything much better for quite a time so apologies.

**Spring** _  
_

_I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. –John Steinbeck_

March was a problematic, hypocritical, wicked month. It was said for Janus to be the two-headed God, yet January had always been pretty clear and straightforward, freezing them to death with no complexities or tricks. March indicated the arrival of spring, yet after a couple of warm, sunny days, the skies had opened again and it was pouring violently, a real storm going on outside the car, thunders exploding in the dark afternoon sky and the tapping of the rain against the windows and the hood causing the whole vehicle to vibrate rhythmically. Grantaire loathed March every year, because He was more cunning than himself. Grantaire wanted to loathe March this year as well but He didn’t allow him, because never in his life had he lived a more glorious month.

They weren’t visible behind the rain-streaked foggy car windows but even if they were he knew he wouldn’t care for anything anymore. What was doomed was already doomed, he was going to hell and he'd decided to enjoy every minute of it, to cherish and treasure it. They were a mess of wandering hands and disheveled curls, swollen lips fighting violently with each other, ragged breathing and pounding hearts. Grantaire had tried hard to contain himself at first but Enjolras’ hands soon got everywhere, erratic and greedy and incoherent, fighting with the hem of his shirt, carding through his hair and gripping on his arms. They were kissing as if their lives depended on it, teeth clashing together, tongues tasting deep, trying to memorize every corner of their mouths, ever faint scent of alcohol and coffee and cigarettes and paint, until Enjolras pulled away, panting and pressed his hands on Grantaire’s chest. “Show me,” he said throatily. “Show me how to touch you.”

Grantaire, almost terrified that they’d stop, that Enjolras had changed his opinion as he’d feared numerous times throughout the past days despite the obvious passion and determination in the student’s eyes, gaped at him, trying to catch his breath. “What?”

“ _Teach me,_ ” breathed Enjolras lowly and Grantaire’ breath hitched on his throat.

“What?” croaked Grantaire, his knuckles brushing on a smooth cheek. “What do you want me to teach you?”

“Everything.”

“We can’t…” murmured Grantaire, trying to reason with Enjolras, with himself, with his racing fuckin’ _heart._ “This is… I can’t.”

Enjolras fingers moved to wrap around his teacher’s wrists forcefully. “Show me,” he breathed again, taking his hands and leading them over his chest, above his racing heart, and then on his sides and the curves of his hips, “I want to touch you.”

The older man’s arousal which was already obvious, now caused his whole body to throb with desire and his jeans uncomfortably tight. “Alright,” he murmured, calm enough to oblige, craving to worship every inch of him. “Promise you’ll immediately stop me if I do anything you’re not comfortable with.” Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I am perfectly capable of doing that, yes.”

Grantaire took a deep breath and then his hands moved, one of them cupping his neck, the other tangling in his blonde locks. He felt him stiffening beneath his touch as he leaned closer to press his lips on his throat. “Relax,” he muttered on his hot skin before gently grasping in Enjolras’ hair, causing him to gasp. “Tell me what to do,” the boy breathed.

Grantaire raised his eyes to meet with his own. “Kiss me,” he instructed, “kiss me in every spot that attracts you, every spot that _you_ think that will cause me pleasure.”

 Enjolras was more than eager to oblige, and it was almost effortless compared to the extent of Grantaire’s experience, it felt so correct and natural to have his lips – _his s_ _tudent’s-_ pressed against his pulse point, teeth nibbling on his exposed throat and his hot tongue tracing across his collarbone. Grantaire wanted to scream, to moan, yet he was afraid to allow himself, he’d only feel like he’d violated the perfection of the situation, he’d only be ashamed to have exposed and bared himself and his feelings so fully to the younger man’s sensations.

As much as he might had progressed in art, Enjolras was a formidable student in every aspect. His touches soon became deft, unforced and effortless, as if he’d rehearsed them a million times, so much that they were now natural as breathing. They lived for those guilty, burning moments they stole in some empty classroom, sprawled against a desk, on the backseat of Grantaire’s car or in his bedroom where he learnt to accept the boy in the same way he’d accepted his fate.

It went wrong. Grantaire had adored and worshipped his student in a passionate, abnormal way from the moment their eyes first met, yet it was Enjolras who first said it. Just three words breathed at the very heat of the moment while they were an incoherent mass of limbs on Grantaire’s couch. They were breathed upon the bare skin of the teacher’s torso, tracing all over his collarbones and the tattoos on his shoulders. They were obviously driven by lust and need yet they sounded innocent, verbalized by a man who was still a child, the most serene melody and the most menacing cry of despair that reflected his own in Grantaire’s ears:

_I love you._

He never thought he wouldn’t be able to reply in a statement with such an obvious answer. His whole being had been burning with those sentiments for all this time, yet words seemed to have abandoned him and his hands froze before he leaned closer to press his lips upon Enjolras’, his heart ready to explode out of his chest.

*

But that’s how March is, indecisive and wild and insane, and at times He remembers that He has showed off enough and decides to be sweet, and when that happens, the sweetness would be enough to rot peoples’ teeth if they weren’t too busy having their mind taken away and succumbing to the light of the sun and the cherry trees that bloomed. 

It would be rather strange for Grantaire to hang out with his students but it doesn’t feel exactly that way anymore. The weather was beautiful that Sunday when they decided to jump in three cars and with careless spontaneity that resembled of a ‘60s romance comedy, drove off to the French countryside.

As he heard Musichetta sing on the backseat of his car, sprawled on Joly and Bossuet’s laps “ _Le temps est bon, le ciel est bleu, j’ai deux amis qui sont aussi mes amoureux,”_ he couldn’t help but smile. As he saw his beloved Éponine jumping gaily like a little girl around on the grass and the mature student Combeferre taking his glasses off and lying on the grass, shutting his eyes and waiting for the scent of her cigarette nearby to make him open them and take her in his arms, filled him with unusual warmth. For the first time in years he felt like he _belonged,_ like he and Éponine were not the outcasts that desperately clang on each other, like they were accepted and admired and _needed_ to a group, a group of schoolboys with their heads full of dreams, dreams that had long ago been crashed in his own.

But now it felt different, he suddenly felt young, those naïve dreams worth chasing. Enjolras was lying against a tree in a denim shirt, sun bathing him gloriously, a halo of gold surrounding his pale face, and the boy himself seemed closer to the freedom he had always been seeking.

Grantaire lay on the grass, head on Enjolras’ lap and a sketchbook supported against his bent knees, drawing this and that and all the silly things around him that made him reconsider, that maybe, just _maybe…_

They did not talk openly of their relationship, or whatever it was that they shared, with their friends though they both knew that everybody was aware of the chemistry between them, at least Combeferre and Éponine confirmedly knew everything, and it was impossible for a maître of the kind as Courfeyrac, or for a maître of a quite similar kind as Jehan to not realize. However they still remained silent and Grantaire was always scared because no one should know.

Enjolras’ fingers were absent-mindedly playing with Grantaire’s locks, trying to focus in a textbook as Courfeyrac, Éponine and Bossuet were playing some kind of noisy game around them.

“I don’t know whether I’m sober enough for something so ridiculously romantic,” Grantaire muttered, nipping slightly on the tip of his pencil.

“You always know the best things to say, don’t you?” murmured Enjolras without taking his eyes from his book.

“So pray tell me, Apollo dearest. What exactly would be appropriate of a cynic to say in the country side?”

“I don’t know about cynics, R,” Enjolras let his book near him, lowering his eyes to look right into Grantaire’s, and as the teacher lay down, facing the blue sky and the white clouds and this godly face bathed in the sun, he was sure he was dreaming. “Though I think I have a distant idea of what I’d expect to hear from an artist.”

“And what,” Grantaire dropped his sketchbook, sneakily pinching Enjolras’ ribs and causing him to squirm, “would an artist be expected to say?”

Enjolras’ head is closer and closer, until only a breath is separating their lips. “ _Will…”_ they brush together, _“you…”_ a breath shared, _“pose…”_ a tongue gently tracing across his lower lip, _“for me?”_

And Grantaire melts into the kiss pretty much aware of the breathtaking fact that the world seems to have turned upside down.

*

_The fire of the candle flickers before his eyes and he moves them slowly to the wrinkled white sheets lit by its light, lucky, contented sheets which embrace the curve of those firm, pale hips, legs peeking out, legs resembling those of a woman, slender, smooth, with short fair hair that glimmers in the dim light, feet that seem to have burst out of a painting of Michelangelo and the scene somehow has a touch of Renaissance, and he feels the pride of those who discovered the statue of the ancient Apollo Belvedere, of those Italians who dusted the soil from the marble face and held it tenderly, breathing life into it again._

_..._

_It’s the first time he paints in the candlelight yet it feels like he’s never done it any other way. The pencil feels more trusting, lither between his fingers, the trembling shadows on the canvas seem to penetrate the draft and transform it into a breathing portrait without more effort from him._

_He knows he’s growing old, he knows he’s already older than he should be, he knows that he is damned. But Apollo is only seventeen, and that’s where it begins._

*

He had never seen him paint or draw before, nothing else but sketches and doodles on a smudged sketchpad and now he felt small, naïve, almost betrayed, because for his professor drawing was more serious than breathing and he was ashamed because he should have known, the way he felt for him, _he should have known._

He was awestruck, he couldn’t recall ever seeing him more eerily beautiful than this very moment, deeply concentrated and thoroughly lost in the only thing he believed in even though he wouldn’t admit it, and Enjolras didn’t know whether that thing was his art or himself or a mixture of the two, but Enjolras was young and full of dreams and Enjolras _believed_  in him already and always would, he knew he would because such affection he hadn’t felt for other skin than this callused and tattooed, such desire he hadn’t experienced for eyes other than this skies of blue, and his fingers had nowhere felt more natural, not around a pencil, not on the keys of his laptop, just tangled in that viciously wild hair, holding him close to his chest. Grantaire had always been human, a soul, a body, most of all a mind, but now he was art and _colors_  and shades inbetween, the colors which entrapped the young student and swirled with him in a manner that could make no more sense, he just accepted it because he had finally learnt to see the true colors.

He was surprised at the serenity that took over him, at how natural the process felt, as if he was born to pose to a mythical Pygmalion, as if posing would change the world.

Maybe it would. His world.

It was almost orgasmic, what they shared. The sound of Grantaire’s pencils scratching the paper, the way Enjolras’ vivid imagination fantasized of his hands, callused and raw and warm, wrapped around his pencil protectively without being able to see them and the way they would feel on his burning skin, the view of the artist’s thin, lower lip between his yellowish teeth, his frowned brow and blue eyes, so bright and focused at the dim candlelight.

“I’ve never worked in a power blackout before,” Grantaire murmured and Enjolras could sense the sides of his lips upturning. He was not the artist, of course, but if anyone asked him how he felt about the sudden blackout he most definitely didn't mind. The light radiated from Grantaire’s glance seemed to be enough.

He didn’t remember how exactly they end up like that, he only remembered being treated distantly, with reserved veneration, like a king or a God, he remembered hating it because they should be equals and he would fight for it until the very last moment so he did, and then Grantaire’s clothes were flying in the air to meet his own on the sleazy floor of his bedroom, they were tangled between the sheets, kissing each other breathless as the flicker of the candlelight reflected upon their skin, shining with a thin layer of sweat.

Grantaire’s fingers came to wrap around his firm erection and Enjolras’ breath hitched on his throat, his head falling back and his throat exposed to the other’s warm breath. He allowed the waves of heat and arousal prevail upon him before managing to catch his breath and grip on the older man, stroking and rubbing him in the same, yet slightly less rhythmical pace. Grantaire’s breath came out raspy, erratic and labored. “Jesus,” he managed to croak between his throaty sighs, “you learn so quickly…”

“I have a good teacher,” Enjolras could only mumble before he lowered his head, and much to Grantaire’s shock, took him in his mouth, causing the room around him to blur and spin before he returned to reality, _could this be reality,_ groaned softly under his breath as Enjolras moved his head steadily, fucking his mouth against the brunet’s throbbing erection, his hands coming to rest on the sides of his hips, feeling rather proud of himself as he tasted him, _all of him_ inside him. Enjolras never wanted to stop, it was so new and different and _exciting,_ he soon picked up a pace and sucked until Grantaire was a panting mess against the pillows. “Fuck fuck _fuck—_ “ he gasped, his hands shut tightly and his fingers carded through blond curls, and his aroused, agonized voice got mixed with a hint of tenderness. “So good, such-- a _good--_ student,” he gasped with every thrust of Enjolras’ head closer to his lips, his tongue warm and slick and perfect, and he felt the boy smiling around him. His grip grew firmer in Enjolras’ hair and he growled huskily. “Stop,” he said helplessly, “I want this—we can’t…”

Enjolras pulled away with a sound, licking his lips in a tantalizing manner before raising his mischievous, burning eyes to face him. “Teach me,” he said hoarsely, in a voice so different than his usual, and he wanted it _God,_ how he wants to be held and felt and _fucked_ by his teacher, so gorgeous and savage and dark and _colorful,_ he traced his fingers up and down his tattooed shoulders until Grantaire couldn’t breathe properly anymore. “No,” he gasped, “we can’t – I can’t…”

“ _Fuck me._ ”

Grantaire shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, unable to bear the need pounding through his body anymore, Enjolras knew he is because he was feeling just the same. “You’ll be the death of me,” the dark haired man breathed against the warm skin on the crook of Enjolras neck, before gently pushing him on his back, climbing atop of him. The student could ense the trembling of his hands as he felt his whole body, those warm, raw fingers touching his chest, his abdomen and delicate waist and he shut his eyes, trying to slow his breathing in order to suck in every heavenly sensation of skin against skin and lips clashing together. “Spread your legs,” Grantaire commanded and Enjolras was more than eager to oblige, arousal throbbing frantically in his body.

The warm weight was removed from his own and he almost wanted to cry in disappointment, his eyes shut and his head pounding, feeling the cool air of the room brushing on his skin, but soon he heard some meddling near him which might as well had been his racing heart, and he felt Grantaire return and before he knew it his fingers were pressed between his thighs and Enjolras was gasping. “Is this alright?” the voice that woke him from his orgasmic lethargy was soft, caressing his ears and he could only oblige, _beg._ A slick finger was slowly sliding inside him and he was unable to hold back a moan, in fact he didn’t even try, it was relief and torture at the same time and he needed this and he needed _more_ and the colors he saw behind shut lids, oh _the colors!_

Grantaire’s finger curled inside him, then another and he was twitching, moaning heavily, greedy for him, for _all of him._ “I can’t R –fuck I _can’t, I need you…_ ”

He could feel Grantaire pulling away and there were a few seconds –or centuries- of haze around him until he felt a warm weight pressed against his body, a heart hammering united with his own, leading the rhythm as he thrust inside him, stopping time for a while. He couldn’t hear himself gasping and moaning his teacher’s name, all he could hear was the incoherent buzzing in his head, and he opened his eyes to stare into those bright blue ones, full with need and darkness and devotion as he held him close and started thrusting in and out of him, picking up a pace. “Are you alright?” Grantaire asked huskily and Enjolras could only wrap his legs around his waist and bury his face in his shoulder and dig his teeth into his skin, tasting the sweat and the colors of the tattoos. It was extraordinary, nothing near what he had imagined. It was savage and wild and dark as it would be with Grantaire, but at the same time it bore immense tenderness and veneration, for every hollow and curve of his young body that Grantaire peppered with burning kisses, his features pulled in a pained expression as he moved and breathed inside him, their mouths meeting and swallowing each other’s hungry breaths.

It was art, not quite a war as the Guernica, not quite a wickedly peaceful mayhem as Starry Night, not as rich as Klimt or as real as Courbet. It was music yet it wasn’t exactly Vivaldi’s passionate violins or Lennon’s nasal dreaming. It was all of that, it was _more_ than that and it was a composition of their own, the feeling of two clammy bodies dancing together, the symphony of their loud moans and breathy grunts leading the way until they explode with each other’s name a mantra on their lips and collapsed against the mattress, breathless, stunned and taken apart.

The candle had almost melted by the time their eyelids drifted shut.

*

_Is that what you’re trying to say?_

_A faggot_

_Is that what we raised you for?_

_A little FAGGOT is that what you are?_

_Nothing you ever missed_

_Going to change the world, aren’t you?_

_Change nothing_

_Nothing_

_Disappear from our sight_

The slam of a door. Faces red with rage. He did not belong there. Strangers.

_Disappear_

He did. He obliged.

Only he did not do it immediately, no. He rushed to his bedroom first, blood pounding in his meninges. A whole new war started downstairs because he slammed the door but he didn’t care. This would be over soon, too soon. His suitcase was underneath his bed. He threw in some clothes and shoes, books and his laptop. He stopped at his art equipment which always reminded him how poor he was at that one thing, but then shoved all the brushes, textbooks and pencils in his suitcase and zipped it.

It was a pleasant evening of late March. His grey sweater was enough to keep out the chill. He’d learnt the process by heart. Three knocks on the door, stern and rhythmical. Grantaire, disheveled and drowsy, blue eyes lit up when he saw him. No questions asked, none answered. “I’ve come to stay with you. For good.”

He could literally see the gears working and racing in Grantaire’s mind, every thought of his teacher animatedly played before his eyes like a movie in fast forward. Someone would find out. He would lose his job. Enjolras’ parents would come looking for him and they wouldn’t live to see the end of it. It was doomed to go wrong.

And then he saw what he expected to appear in Grantaire’s eyes.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he murmured once more before stepping back, helping him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help not putting the song Musichetta is singing because the whole scene was actually inspired by it/  
> It is Le temps est bon by Isabelle Pierre and it's beautiful.


	8. April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want to stretch this moment into an eternity,” muttered Enjolras blissfully.
> 
> And then it all went to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm incredibly sorry for not having updated in what seems like a month, there really are no excuses for me other than a horrible, never ending writer's block combined with my new Love Actually AU on which I've been working for weeks and thankfully, finished it.  
> Though I /have/ promised you that I will finish this story and I will! Maybe this week, if inspiration doesn't completely abandon me!  
> Please forgive me and I really hope you like this chapter, even though angst is here I'm sorry.  
> TW: panic attacks, blood

_The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion._

_Albert Camus_

You don’t need to fight with death in order to finally realize that you’re alive. You don’t need a vivid explosion of feelings and fireworks, like in the movies, screaming in a roller-coaster or becoming a pilot or dance your way through life. No, you don’t need any of that.

The realization that he was more alive than ever before came peaceful and subtle, a few stray sunrays peering hesitantly through the window, signaling the arrival of the month of nature's renaissance, a soft breath on the nape of his neck, an arm wrapped around his waist. The sight of clothes scattered on a pile near the mattress, a pair of cold feet pressed against his calf, tangled in sheets that could have been much smoother, was his salary slightly more humanly. It was gentle and calm and he didn’t need anything else. He just had to open his eyes and roll on his side on the bed to know that this was what life felt like.

He was in the kitchen later, making coffee for the both of them remembering exactly how Enjolras took his own, and frying crepes because it only felt right, even though he couldn’t find any hint of Nutella or syrup in the cupboards, just some crappy old apricot marmalade. He saw him entering the tiny kitchen and felt a pang of shame at the thought of the unwashed dishes and leftovers of takeaway everywhere around the sleazy surfaces, but soon everything dissolved into something incoherent, like when you begin saying something only to be distracted and forgetting everything you were about to verbalize, causing yourself to ramble half-heartedly. He was in a pair of plaid boxer shorts and a button down shirt which hung loosely around his lithe figure – _his_ clothes. His hair was tousled yet frustratingly perfect, even in the morning, his cheeks rosy and free of any pillow marks. He was stunning and he was young, so young as he carelessly curled a corner of his mouth, smiling crookedly, before taking a seat on a chair and pulling his bare feet near his body. He was young, only a child, yet at the same time he wasn’t.

They shared their coffee in silence, focusing on their food and on the brown drops of warm beverage on the dusty wood of the kitchen table, on the way each other’s fingers curled around the mug and on the orange marmalade slowly dripping from the knife. He took a few chances to sneak on him, and take glimpses of the absent-minded, relaxed look in his eyes, of the way he sipped his coffee and the way his eyebrows remained unfrowned as if he hadn’t just run away from home.

They could hear the morning traffic from outside, way too busy for a Sunday morning, as if the sudden appearance of the spring sun had magnetized the people of Paris and forced them out of their little lives and to the world, in thousands. Beneath the noise, they could hear a few birds singing from the nest above the small balcony.

Somehow they’d woken up, and it already was April.

*

In the beginning it was only white with tiny splatters of color. White light entering through the window, white metallic buckets with paint with only a few droplets of blue and red and purple and orange all around and a white wall, greying, really, of the tiny whole of a studio. And then there was white and black and black and white on the newspapers beneath their feet, covering all of the floor with letters, things that happened a week, a month ago, not news anymore, just letters, just words merely unconnected to each other.

They took a deep breath. He saw Enjolras dragging it hungrily even though he seemed collected, concentrated and determined, as if he was about to change the dynamics of the whole world just with some paint, devoted like he was in his every quest, every cause he dedicated himself into.

Their bare feet were stepping on the newspapers, which somehow did feel like irony. He pressed the button on the radio and music gave the rhythm for Enjolras to first dip his paintbrush in a bucket, hesitantly at first, cautious of that feeling of the unexpected he’d never grow familiar with, no matter how many art classes he’d take or how many hours he’d spend practicing mixing colors together. It was Grantaire that held his wrist at first, guiding his tensed hand to spill paint on the white wall, a decision which had felt rather shocking at first. It was red, then blue, and the tricolor effect it produced on the white wall somehow caused his heart flutter. Earning a glance of approval from Grantaire he continued, anarchically throwing paint on the wall and soon Grantaire joined him, both of them jumping in the air and arching their backs as if in slow motion. It was Enjolras again to let the first cry of excitement and complete, utter freedom. It was only then that Grantaire felt younger than ever, ready for everything, ready to fly. He watched every curve and every hollow of Enjolras’ body as he jumped and stretched and curled, color flying from his brush and fingertips and momentarily painting the air they breathed erratically as the wall opposite them was filling with the most surreal rivers of paint, dripping down and producing small lakes on the newspapers, red and blue and green and yellow. They danced in the air at the rhythm of the music only then they were dancing together on the floor, their bare feet staggering, covered in paint, blond and dark curls of hair, pale skin and cotton clothes covered in sweat and color, their fingers pieces of art, of lilac and orange and aquamarine and ochre. They touched each other hungrily, lips meeting and tasting the paint and the sweat and the smoke as their bodies rolled against the newspapers, wrapped tightly around each other, tongues travelling in their mouths and tasting greedily, hands touching and feeling and holding as if the other would vanish into thin air, only they were real, so real and solid and warm, sharing every ragged breath and every color on their skin, their hands everywhere, teeth nibbling and biting and trailing their flesh with marks of love.

Grantaire fucked Enjolras against the newspapers, roughly, greedily, every movement full of the passion he’d always seemed to be lacking, eliciting deep, breathy moans with every movement that brought them closer to the point when no one knew where the one began and the other finished. Orgasm found them torn, a mess of sweat and paint. It took them a while to be brought back to reality and they stayed into the colorful studio, the dripping walls having experienced an orgasmic explosion of color themselves. Peace found Enjolras resting his head on Grantaire’s chest as they shared a lazy cigarette, the tantalizing smoke lingering in the air above their faces, full with lust and serenity.

It was April and for once, the older art teacher could wholly believe in what his hands, his eyes and lips beheld, feeling everything real and humanly, not a work of art anymore, not untouchable masterpieces that did not obey to their artist. It was April and nothing seemed possible to go wrong again, it felt absurd as they held each other through it all, lying naked and damp and blissful against some scattered newspapers, their bodies temples and canvases and _heaven._

“I want to stretch this moment into an eternity,” muttered Enjolras and it came out decided, stubborn, reminding of the child he once was, the child he’ll forever be. He held Grantaire’s callused hand tightly in his own, smooth, paint-stained palm, as if not letting it go right now would secure them together until the end of time.

Grantaire simply smiled, allowing his eyelids to slid shut and taking a drag of the smoke. It was April and they were free, and if only April finished tomorrow, they would be free forever.

*

Sometimes, months later he kept wondering whether things would have been different if he hadn’t returned home that day, to pick some clothes, thinking that the storm had passed. Sometimes he kept wondering if everything would have happened if he didn’t go back. Of course his parents would have found him, sooner or later, but in the future he never stopped wondering whether he could have at least won some time.

He would always remember that day, the wrath he’d expected to see on his parents’ faces, the worry and the stress and the desperation he’d _hoped_ to see, only to be faced with rehearsed calmness instead, a horrifying, collected coolness in their black expressions.

Afterwards he’d remember what they said, only at that moment he heard nothing. He couldn’t listen, it was as if the world had stopped around him. Only later he’d recall the shouts, the curses and screams, the slam of the door that couldn’t save him anymore, the graveness of the finality of the situation.

He never needed many words to describe the horror that crippled like a snake, like a deadly disease from his toes to his head, strangling him, smothering him slowly, draining all the air out of the room and leaving him on the floor, suffocating or hyperventilating or everything at once, limbs trembling and pulse dull, the distant, muffled sounds of Combeferre and Courfeyrac from downstairs, shouting to his parents and demanding to see him.

No words were needed but few.

They knew. _They couldn’t handle him._ He was going to a boarding school in the country. His life as he knew it was over. _For his own good._ There was nothing he could do about it.

They could have as well killed him.

*

Muted. It was muted. Headmaster Javert didn’t need to shout to impose himself. He didn’t need to raise his voice. All there had to be was sheer disappointment, quiet disgust, a few words which would forever scar him like dull knives that wounded and hurt only superficially, never drawing love, never making it warm and real. It was a nightmare, cold and distant and so unreal, so impossible to be happening.

He could sense his own destruction from the moment the headmaster called him in his office in the middle of a class. He could smell the end in the air of the office. It was over. Everything was over and done.

It was muted. Javert talked to him of compensations and of gathering his things but he couldn’t hear anything. It was only a dull buzzing in his ears that caused his whole body to go numb, his pulse to beat distantly in the rhythm of one word _._

_Fired._

He suspected Enjolras’ parents behind all this. He didn’t apologize even though under different circumstances he’d feel painfully ashamed for having it revealed that he was fucking an underage student. He didn’t feel horrified or repulsed with himself or slapped in the face with realization or ridiculed and undignified. Not now. He felt nothing. He simply nodded his way through the door, as if stuck in some kind of glass walls that separated him from every kind of stimulation from his environment.

The first thought that managed to be formed in his cold mind didn’t immediately cause him pain, only later, so much that he’d wished he’d die, burning through his every cell like every other thought. But not yet. Right then he just managed to think of it.

_This year you grew to love your job. It grew more than money for booze and cigarettes. This year you love the children, you love them so much, and they love you back. You’re going to leave them forever._

Feuilly and Jehan who rushed in the corridor to chat with him, smiling and completely unaware that it’d probably be the last time, caused the first pang on his chest.

These young, lively people who’d changed his life… he’d never see them again.

He forced a smile and said a word or two about Dadaism. Then he turned around and walked away.

He never said goodbye.

*

His voice sounded croaked and wrong in Enjolras’ buzzing ears and spinning head. “They sent me away but I promise I will try, I won’t leave you, just please promise you won’t do anything stupid and I’ll try to make it, I’ll find something…”

“R?”

Grantaire stopped speaking and Enjolras felt a tight knot of nausea tying inside him. “I’m leaving.”

He hated to see him like that, a grown up man with a voice dry with desperation, blue eyes surrounded by small wrinkles yet gaping widely in horror like a child’s. The days when Grantaire was still his teacher and they fought about the stupidest things in class now seemed so distant… “What?”

He felt too tired to talk, all of his strength seemed to have been sucked out of his body, leaving him torn and empty. “I’m going in the country to finish the school year. In a boarding school.”

Grantaire didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He seemed to be frozen and he scared Enjolras so much. He wished to nudge him, to shake him back to reality but after what felt like centuries, Grantaire finally spoke, his voice hoarse and tiny. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” the small chuckle that left his mouth was forced, almost hysterical.

“I’m being serious,” he replied wearily, giving some time to Grantaire to let the news sink in. His whole body was aching but he knew he couldn’t stop trying, not now, not when they’d come this far. He made a step closer, resting his hand on the older man’s arm comfortingly, the lump in his throat growing wider and wider.

“Isn’t there anything you can do to stop this?” Grantaire eventually burst out, startling him, sounding almost desperate.

Enjolras heaved a sigh. “There is no point. It’s only three months. On June the year ends and I turn eighteen. Then I’ll come back, find a job, we can live in your apartment, together!” He threw his arms around Grantaire’s neck, sucking in the scent of alcohol, cigarettes and sweet, familiar sweat. “We’ll make it, R, I promise.”

Grantaire was limp between his arms, tensed and unmoving. He scared him that way, he made him feel uncomfortable when he became like that. “We won’t,” he replied throatily.

“Why?” Enjolras asked, raising his voice a little. “It’s hard, I know it is, but we’ll make it…”

“We’ll NEVER make it, Apollo,” Grantaire shouted. “It isn’t going to happen.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes, starting to feel tired with everyone and everything in his life. “Listen…” he tried to maintain his nerves. “I know this is hard…”

“HARD? Is it fuckin’ _hard_?” exploded Grantaire. “I’ve lost my fuckin’ JOB!”

“Really?” snorted Enjolras, on the verge of a fit. “Well learn that, Grantaire, I’m going to leave my whole _life_ behind, the friends I’ve had since I was five, my school, my _activism,_ my everything to go in some religious school in some godforsaken place. If you think I haven’t thought of destroying everything, of dropping everything and running away…”

“Of fuckin’ course,” a grave smile formed slowly on Grantaire’s lips, the same, sarcastic smile that had always rendered Enjolras furious. “Of course, you’re going to leave your activism, isn’t that horrible? _For three whole months!_ ”

“Listen, I’m painfully sorry for your job, because I know it was all my fault but we’re in the same fuckin’ situation now. You know you’re more important than all that in my life, you know you matter but there’s nothing, I swear, _nothing_ I can do!”

“You’re the revolutionary,” spat Grantaire in a snarky voice, stubbornly resembling of a child. “You want to overthrow governments yet you can deal with your own parents.”

That did it. Enjolras pulled away and stood up, furious. “Well if you’re asking me to drop my _only chance_ of them funding my education so that I can finish school and get the diploma _you_ got yourself as well a few years ago, if you’re asking me to throw my whole life in the air, then learn that I don’t fucking intend to do so! I don’t understand why you’re acting like a child, it’s only three months, we’ll sort everything out, and I’ll be back before you know it free and spitting in their face…” He was waving his hands in the air passionately like when he used to give speeches, like every time when he’d tried to convince Grantaire and stir the faith in him in the past.

“Don’t bother,” Grantaire said quietly. “This isn’t going to work.”

“WHY?” cried Enjolras, stomping his foot on the floor. “Stop this fucking _bullshit_ …”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire looked away, his voice impossibly calm and deep. “This never was going to work.”

Enjolras felt like he’d been slapped in the face with cold water. He tried to make a step forward, to touch his shoulder with a shaking hand but Grantaire pulled away as if touched by electricity. “We’ve been through so much,” Enjolras said with his heart pounding madly in his meninges. “Don’t give up on me now, you _can’t._ ”

“Of course I can,” said Grantaire, and he sounded more cold and distant than ever. “I’m sorry, Enjolras. I really am.”

He was suffocating again. There wasn’t enough air in the room, there just wasn’t. Burning tears swelled on his eyes and he felt ashamed and week, only a child and he couldn’t, he _couldn’t._ “LOOK AT ME!” he screamed on the top of his lungs, rendering himself breathless. Grantaire turned around slowly, his expression frozen with shock. “DAMN YOU!” Enjolras shouted, his body shaking with rage, “WE NEED TO FIGHT THIS! YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME LIKE THAT! WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

Grantaire simply shook his head, his eyes empty, surrounded by dark circles, his lips thin and dry. “I’m sorry,” was all he could say, strangled and silent.

Enjolras was desperately searching for his eyes. He couldn’t, he couldn’t do it. There wasn’t enough air. Enjolras needed to look at Grantaire but Grantaire refused to look at him. “You never believed in this,” he said with a sob, and on the next minute he was suffocating.

It was happening again yet he didn’t have the strength to fight it back, he didn’t care anymore. Everything became dark, the room blurry and spinning around him, he couldn’t breathe, _he_ _couldn’t._ Breathless sobs were choking him and there just wasn’t enough air. Arms were wrapped around him, a voice soothed him out of his pain, tender, loving, the shadow of what had once been. _Breathe, Apollo. I need you to breathe. Breathe with me, please. Just breathe._

It was the last time Grantaire held him in his arms.

*

His two best friends were in his room as he packed the last few things to get in the car with a person he currently hated with all of his being (his own mother). He wouldn’t have time to say goodbye to all of them, the group of friends that defined him as a personality and completed him as a human being, their convictions and the beliefs that they shared whole-heartedly, the unbreakable comradery between them. Every arrangement had been made and he had to leave now. He didn’t even have the strength to try and grip himself back anymore. He hated it all, he hated the life that awaited for him in the country and he’d been deceived by the life he left behind. For the very first time in his life, he allowed everyone to drag him and take him anywhere they wished, he was tired of fighting against them, he just wished to be over and done with it. At least he saw it as a way of escape. Even though going away was _their_ choice, it would mean getting away from them, and when he’d finally return he’d be off age and he could leave home and never see them again.

Combeferre helped him carry the last suitcase outside and they stopped, breathless before the car. It was a sunny day but Enjolras hardly ever paid attention to the weather yet today everything seemed beautiful, the sun mocking him to the face and he felt a pang in his chest as Courfeyrac threw his arms around him fiercely, with tears swelling in his eyes. “I hate you,” he growled in the crook of his neck. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

“You don’t hate him, Courf,” said Combeferre softly, his voice slightly hoarse.

“Of course I don’t,” choked Courfeyrac, pulling Combeferre in the tight hug. "Come here, you fucking _idiots!_ " Enjolras, who had managed to maintain his composure up to that point suddenly needed to leave, before he’d break and tear up in front of his friends. They smelt so familiarly and they felt warm around him, and the pain felt to already have numbed inside him and fill him with a heavy lump on his throat.

“Come on,” said his mother in a rather awkward tone, neither her usual imposing, menacing one as that would be completely atrocious of her right now, neither the poisonous sweetly voice she adopted every time she wished to dig her claws in his skin at the same time in front of others. “You’ll miss your train.”

He didn’t care to give her a spiteful response. He simply tightened his grip around Courfeyrac before releasing him, and then stood before Combeferre.

“Write to us when you get there,” his friend said, after clearing his throat, his face darkened by a shadow. “Just send us a text or an email, just…” he cleared his throat again, as if something was blocking him uncomfortably. “Just let us know how things are.” He squeezed his arm comfortingly, in a way that always gave him courage. How would he survive without Combeferre there? _How?_

“I will,” he nodded. "Don't stop working on the group, I leave it all to you both, and I trust you with my life."

They nodded reassuringly. “You’ll be back before you know it,” muttered Combeferre and Enjolras nodded, his head spinning slightly again with unpleasant dizziness.

Enjolras opened the door and peered in the back seat of the entirely too luxurious car of his family, unable not to think of those painless moments of love and need and _heaven_ in Grantaire’s car, of the way his hands felt against his skin, his lips tasting him slowly, as if they had forever ahead of them.

_They hadn’t._

His mother had already started the car when a teary Courfeyrac knocked on her window. She didn’t open it. “This is not cool, Mme Enjolras!” he shouted. “Not cool at all! You should follow your husband’s example and get laid soon because you seriously need it!”

Enjolras’ mother did not reply, only tightened her lips in a mask of wrath and took over.

*

**[From: Éponine, 16:34] Ferre told me everything. I thought u’d care to let me know if all went to hell. Pick up your fuckin phone or else I’m coming over and there’s nth u can do about it.**

**[From: Enjolras, 17:59] I wanted to let you know I’ve arrived. Everything sucks. I hope you’re well. Take care of yourself. Thank you for everything.**

It was all in slow motion. A cigarette, then another and another. His eyes got fixed on the dark tendrils of smoke as they slowly swirled above his head. Then it felt like he was punched in the gut yet it didn’t hurt and he wished it would. It was a bucket of paint. Red paint which he kicked and splattered all over the floor of his crappy living room, the living room on which they’d sipped coffee together, played music and talked for hours on those nights when Enjolras tried to get away from his parents, the same parents that cost Grantaire his job. The living room he’d probably be unable to afford now.

He couldn’t paint, he’d never be able to do this again. His hands felt numb, tensed and knotted. He didn’t care. He didn’t have a reason to paint.

It was a drink, then another. He stared at the mirror, his furious, empty and dead reflection staring back at him, wrinkled and tired and disgusting. He hated it, he hated all of it. It was a drink, a bottle of beer that smashed the mirror in a million different pieces, in the way he wished to smash his life, his past and his future in a way that could never be fixed.

His head was spinning with rage that had been silenced all these days. His head was spinning and at the next moment his guitar was being smashed against the floor, the music muted in the way all of his surroundings had already been. He smashed a glass, whatever he could find. He threw the books on the floor with a furious movement.

There, on the dusty bookshelves was an old porcelain miniature of Montmartre’s carousel, humming some old melody off tune. His mother used to love it. He felt his knees deceiving him and he fell on the floor.

Éponine found him curled up and drunk, covered in red paint. His hands were streaked with blood from the broken mirror, his miserable reflection swimming in every little piece.

April had deceived him.


	9. May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Thursday, May 14  
>  Apollo,  
> I’m sorry for not replying you for so long. I’ve been too busy trying to drown myself in the shower. Other than that, life is good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised I would update soon and I sort of kept my promise :) The last chapter will soon be up. I really hope you like this! I really appreciate your feedback and opinions! I'm sorry for always using Richard Siken so shamelessly but I do love him <3  
> I wanted to write letters this time so excuse my urge.

_Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well._

_Richard Siken_

_Date: Mon, 4 May 23:08:44_  
From: Enjolras  
Subject: re: re: re: Blank  
To: Combeferre

_Hey again,_

_Thanks for getting back to me so soon and letting me know all about the progress of the meetings. Please, do keep me informed about the petitions concerning the Trans issue, and do upload your article concerning the Education funds on our blog, of course I don’t need to proofread it. I already know you’ve done an excellent job with it. Don’t ever say those things, we both know that you are a perfect Guide for our group, and you and Courfeyrac can surely handle everything wonderfully even in my absence. I have faith in all of our friends. Feuilly sent me the plan about the protest the other day. He did an excellent job organizing most of it. I’m sure you’ve checked it out. I wish I could be there, I know you’ll all do great. Being politically inactive is killing me slowly, even though I know only by finishing my studies in the only way possible I’ll be able to one day bring some change in our world._

_Answering to your question, yes I have made new friends, thank you very much. :/ Life is good. I’m getting through. I mean, some were hostile but not everyone can like me, can they? My roommate’s name is Jacques and he’s cool, apart maybe from his odd Monica Belucci fixation. Isn’t she too old or something? Anyway, I’m studying for my finals all day, there is no time for other thoughts. You probably are too. I know you’ll do great, just keep an eye on Courfeyrac and Bahorel –Bossuet has Joly, thank goodness- and make sure he isn’t hiding Marvel comics inside his textbooks. If everything goes well I’ll be back in less than two months and everything will be over._

_Thank you very much for the remaining cake you and Courfeyrac sent me from his eighteenth birthday party. I’m so sad I couldn’t be there but he wrote to me quite hyperventilating. Apparently he received my present and a Gryffindor scarf was exactly what he wanted his whole life. I’m very glad to hear that he came out to his parents and they took it well. He says they were betting on it and his mom got to buy new yoga pants with the money she earned? Odd things are happening to our world._

_He’s not replying to my letters, Ferre. I’ve sent him several, and a couple of emails. I don’t even know if he’s alright. Sometimes I wish nothing would have happened, nothing at all._

_I must leave you now. I have four assignments to catch up with. Keep me informed and send everybody my wishes for success in their exams and Éponine my, don’t know, sincere salutations?_

_Talk soon,_

_Enjolras._

_Date: Tue, 5 May 14:36:27_  
From: Combeferre  
Subject: re: re: re: re: Blank  
Dear Enjolras,

_I was very glad to receive your response to my last mail, providing me with the information that you are still alive and have not starved yourself to death yet. Yes, I am aware that you are currently studying for your exams, we all are. Courfeyrac is surprising us all with his unusual determination though I strongly believe our darling Jehan is behind this. I spend most of the time studying with Joly who apparently is a particularly charming and amusing studying partner. Usually Bossuet joins us –with inevitable consequences- but there’s also Musichetta, from the Corinthe who makes us coffees and helps us with our studying. Apparently she’s a university student herself, studying chemistry and working at the bar to pay for her rent. Only Bahorel can be rather disobedient but thankfully the angels of patience, Jehan and Feuilly are there to make sure he studies sufficiently. Yes, of course I saw his plans about the protest. He’s done a remarkable job! We’re very sad you can’t be here as well, but remember. Just a little more than a month, and then you’ll be free and will never have to go away again._

_Thank you for your flattering words but you already know that the group isn’t the same without you. We miss you so much and they’re all gloomy at your absence. I’m glad to read you’ve been making good friends. Please, I know that you already have friends but never underestimate the power of new ones. They can only do you good and Jacques sounds like a nice guy. And yes, Enjolras, it is normal for an average straight eighteen year old guy –or hell, even for a straight girl- to be obsessed with Monica Belucci. She isn’t old, she’s a classic even though I’m more of the Audrey Hepburn type._

_Éponine is great. I met her brother and I’m sure you’d love him. Biggest rebel I’ve ever seen. We’re getting closer and closer. Finally I get the feeling that she wants to let me in. I daresay I’ve never been so happy before._

_R is well. I mean… you know what I mean. Éponine has been telling me. We haven’t seen him in ages, he rarely even sees her, you know. I hear he’s busy searching for a place with a cheaper rent and a new job. I’ll let you know if I learn anything. Give him some time with himself, I understand that he may need it. Don’t feel like anything’s your fault, and don’t ever regret something that once changed you as a person and gave you positive experiences._

_I know you’ll do splendid in your exams, Enjolras. No one needs to tell me. Just promise me you won’t wear yourself too much and that you’ll remember to eat and to sleep more than an hour every night –or not even that. No, don’t roll your eyes at me. I’m sure these assignments aren’t due for at least two more weeks and I know you haven’t been sleeping properly. I can smell it through the computer._

_When it’s your time to turn eighteen next month we’ll throw a huge party and you’ll have no way out of it. Courfeyrac is going to make sure about it. He smothers you in kisses. Jehan says hi and he misses you, so do Feuilly, Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel, Cosette and even Marius. Oh, and my parents too._

_Good luck in everything, we both know you can do it._

_Talk soon,_

_Combeferre_

_Sunday, May 10_

_Dear R,_

_I’m sorry for disturbing you again. I understand that you are very busy and that you probably don’t want to speak to me right now, but despite everything that’s happened you have been my teacher once, the best one I’ve ever had, and I just need to know that you’re alright._

_I don’t even know if you’re reading these anymore, I suppose you don’t so please allow me to say things I haven’t yet dared to say to anyone, in order to not alarm them.  Things are not going really smooth. Most of the guys are obnoxious bullying assholes. I got into a brawl my first night here. Nothing serious, don’t worry and please don’t tell the others if you see them, they’ll be concerned for no reason at all. Some sort of boarding school ritual for sissies. They’d thought it’d be a piece of cake to make my welcoming all ‘pleasant’ but apparently it wasn’t. I got detention but my good grades soon restored my reputation to the professors. I’m studying for my finals now, keeping myself busy. I think I’ll do fine. Some guys have tried to approach me but I don’t really feel like meeting new people. No one can replace my friends back in Paris. I miss them, R, so much. I miss everything, really. I miss the city so much that it hurts, Being politically inactive is killing me, even though I know that I’m studying to gain the ability to really make a change in the world one day. But most of all, I miss my professors. Valjean and the extraordinarily interesting discussions we had in History class, Mabeuf with his calm, patient ways and his endless knowledge and you, R. I know that is probably the last thing you want to hear right now but you really, really were an excellent teacher. I may not be one for art, but with you I have learnt all that I never knew I needed in my life and these turned out to be the most important ones. You have shown me so much, and I will be forever indebted to you._

_It’s hard, really hard I won’t lie to you. But it’s less than two months, then I’ll be free. I heard of your apartment and I’m really sorry, but I know you will be free too, whatever your choice may be._

_Yours,_

_E_

_P.S.1 I have sent you a few more drawings. I know they’re bad but I tried. You taught me that, R._

_P.S.2 And anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain, don’t carry the world upon your shoulders. For well you know that it’s a fool, who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder._

_You taught me that too. Never forget it._

_Thursday, May 14_

_Apollo,_

_I’m sorry for not replying you for so long. I’ve been too busy trying to drown myself in the shower. Other than that, life is good._

_I know you’ve always hated that name, for rather wrong reasons. I’m sorry, I just can’t help but think of you as someone impossible to have ever existed in my life, something so perfect and distant, a dream yet the most real I’ve ever had. You are so far away, Apollo, so unreachable like you were then and I wish I could do it but I can’t._

_Don’t worry about me, I’m fucking fine. Jehan found me a temporary job at the café he recently started working, it’s called the Café Musain and it’s a cute little shithole. I remember that you and your friends were searching for a meeting place. I think you’d love it. In fact Combeferre and Bahorel are already coming tonight to check it out. Who knows, maybe you’ll come here one day to give one of your passionate speeches, if of course you want to see me ever again. I’m temporarily moving in Éponine’s too, Combeferre will probably hate me for cockblocking the shit out of them but I have a room interview next week so maybe this will be my chance to find another craphole to settle down._

_I’d never thought I’d miss teaching but hell I do. But I suppose making coffee is a bloody art too, isn’t it? Probably more artistic than I’d ever been as a fucking art teacher. I might get to draw those little dicks with praline on the surface of the coffee…_

_Give your little classmates a taste of your fist too if needed. Keep me informed. They might need to taste mine too, maybe Bahorel’s. I’ve always wanted to break a tooth or two from some certain students, now nobody can stop me. I feel you. Being antisocial is fun, I know it is._

_I’m pulling my shit together, kid. I promise. Give them hell at your exams. I know you can._

_I know I’ve fucked up. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. Just know I’m sorry and you were the best thing that ever happened in my miserable life._

_Sappily yours,_

_R_

_P.S. I’m impressed with your drawings, not that I ever thought there was anything in which you wouldn’t eventually become perfect. You’ve started developing a style. I really don’t know how to thank you for them. For the time being I’m sending you chocolate. You make me proud, Apollo._

Getting up from bed (Éponine’s sofa) wasn’t always easy. Opening his eyes was painful sometimes, pulling his bones and sore muscles under the blankets was a complete nightmare, not to mention taking a shower.

Not always. Sometimes the spring sun was shining through the windows Combeferre would spend the night in his best friend’s apartment and get ready for school in the morning, he’d hear cheerful conversations from the kitchen, sometimes Jehan would come over together with Courfeyrac and they’d drive together at the Musain to start their afternoon shift. Gavroche was always keeping the mandatory levels of noise and the calendar on the wall opposite the sofa counted the days down for him, causing the dull throbbing of his pulse to faintly pick up.

He reached in the pocket of his hoodie to touch Enjolras’ drawings, paper still warm from the last time he grabbed them. They were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He kept walking on the sunny cobblestone, smelling the flowers from the balconies of the Parisian rooms. Music kept playing in his earphones, always on repeat, and he kept walking.

_So let it out and let it in, Hey Jude, begin, you’re waiting for someone to perform with. And don’t you know that it’s just you, Hey Jude, you’ll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder._

He was healing.


	10. June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Turn around,” he heard Grantaire’s voice, waking him up from his daydreams.
> 
> “What?” he asked incredulously.
> 
> “Do as I say. Just turn around and look behind you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little out of time but aaaaagh it's over. I'm gonna miss this story. It troubled me so much yet I have to admit that I had much fun and emotional moments while writing it. Here, have a cliche ending though I do love the image it gave to my head. Thank you so much for all your support and nice words for this fic, they made me so happy and you mean a lot <3

_There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind you and jump you to the skies._

_Robert Frost_

Graduation was far from a quiet affair. In fact it was a rather pompous one, and Enjolras would be pissed off with so many things, including the presence of his parents looking mostly unimpressed with his success, if it weren’t for his immense excitement for finally being free.

Graduation also happened to be on the same day with his birthday which he rarely ever remembered, let alone cared to celebrate, but now he couldn’t remember ever being happier in his life because he was an adult and he was going back the following day, he would be surrounded by his friends and he’d stoically –even gratefully- accept the hell of a party they had been preparing for him. His only woe was that their graduation took place the same day and he wouldn’t be able to attend theirs and cheer for them, nor where they able to come to his own. It was a beautiful morning of late June, the sun shining brightly above their heads, a little more than needed, actually, causing them to sweat to death in their graduations cloaks, that ridiculous piece of garment that nevertheless was the sign of Enjolras’ freedom, therefore he learnt to adore it from the moment he put it on.

Enjolras had learnt to love school from the moment he first walked through the doors as a five year old boy, holding his beloved Ada’s hand, the chocolate, callused skin which contrasted with his smooth, pale own. Through the years he’d found the most amazing friends he could ever had dreamt of, and he never stopped seeking and treasuring knowledge. Enjolras was, on the whole, impatient in everything he did. Impatient in changing the world even though Combeferre almost every time managed to balance him and get his feet back to earth, impatient to meet new things, impatient to grow up and breathe freedom and live life in the most prolific way possible, for the sake of the people and of his own. However, he’d always thought that when school eventually came to an end, he’d feel sad and nostalgic, he’d wished to be able to lengthen that journey a bit. He had been wrong. What with the turn events had taken the past few months, he was more than relieved to be over and done with his school career, and thirsty for some serious knowledge and action, in university, away from everything that poisoned his life up to that point.

So he waited patiently for the speeches of the rat-faced headmistress and the secretaries of the ministers and all those filthy assholes, then watching his classmates whom he didn’t even get to meet properly, walking up to the aisle with pretentious music on the background, smiling with gel on their hair and tones of makeup that was melting down their faces, thanks to the early summer weather. When his name was announced, together with his inhuman grades, he didn’t even listen to the cheers of the crowd. He just thought that soon enough he’d be able to be in his dorm, take off this cloak and slip in the coldest of showers to relieve himself from the murderous streams of sweat down his throat and back.

When the ceremony was over, he did his best to avoid his parents who wanted to show that the prodigious son with the blond shiny hair was actually theirs, and he decided to spend the rest of it sneaking behind some bush and eating gourmet finger food from the buffet, with the sole company of his phone. There were a million Birthday texts from his friends who all apologized to him for not being there that day, and promising that tomorrow would be a blast and there was nothing he could do but smile like an idiot in his bush.

And just then, his phone buzzed, the name _Unknown_ appearing on his screen. Frowning slightly at the sight of it, he pressed the reply button of his ancient phone and brought it to his ear.

“Hello?”

The voice from the other end of the line was hoarse and slow, and it caused his heart to flutter in his chest. “Happy Birthday, Apollo.”

“Thank you,” he heard himself replying quickly, as if afraid that the voice would go away, that somewhere in Paris someone would hang up his phone, abandoning him with nothing but a rhythmical beeping. “Why are you hiding your number?”

There was a small pause from the end of the line. Then a breath. “Does it matter?” He heard him swallow and unconsciously shut his eyes, tilting his head back. This couldn’t be happening. He hadn’t heard his voice for over two months, two endless months of struggling to keep him out of his head, his hands on his body, his lips burning against his skin, the way he shuddered beneath his tongue, at the warm whispers of devotion that were breathed in his ear… Enjolras had missed him, more than anything in the world, no matter how hard he’d struggled to pretend that his high school art teacher had never existed, that they’d never coupled on a patched mattress and never slept with one’s head on the other’s chest, their limbs tangled together on the sheets.

“No,” he heard himself breathing, “it doesn’t.” He’d fantasized of the day he’d return back to Paris, to his friends and former life for so many times, yet he hadn’t fully realized that sooner or later, he’d return to Grantaire too. A Grantaire who probably wouldn’t want to see him, a Grantaire different, distant, or maybe, just _maybe,_ a Grantaire who’d dare to give it –to give _them-_ a second chance. The endless possibilities of having to face his recent, riotous past so soon, caused him to freeze at his place.

“Turn around,” he heard Grantaire’s voice, waking him up from his daydreams.

“What?” he asked incredulously.

“Do as I say. Just turn around and look behind you.”

Enjolras didn’t understand, Enjolras didn’t see any sense in his former teacher’s words yet he obeyed, the voices of the parents and the students and the teachers so distant a noise right now. He simply turned around, behind the bush and in the tennis pitch, his phone on his ear.

And his heart almost stopped.

Grantaire was standing there in the middle of an empty tennis pitch, phone still on his ear, his cheeks shaved and his eyes surrounded by dark circles, those eyes… so impossibly blue, bringing everything back to memory, making it impossible for Enjolras to not remember, impossible for all the memories, the moments of bliss and of utter agony they had shared to come back to him and fill him with impossible warmth, make his heart to race violently in his chest.

Grantaire slowly lowered the phone, his lips drawing to a faint, crooked smile. Enjolras made a step closer, then another. He considered being delirious, hallucinating from the sun. He should be dreaming, it was completely impossible that Grantaire was there, more real and alive than ever in the past, dressed in a light button down shirt, probably trying to ironically fit in the graduation feast. His wild locks of dark hair had grown longer, shining at the sunlight, and almost brushed against his shoulders, contrasting with the white of his shirt.

They were close, so close, Enjolras could almost touch him yet he didn’t because he was afraid of him dissolving into thin air, of the dream to finish, yet he spoke, breaking the silence. “What are you doing here?”

Grantaire took a step closer and it was as if he was sucking all the air from the sky and from his own lungs because he couldn’t breathe anymore, he was way too stunned to do anything at all. He could see the spots where Grantaire had bitten his own lips the past days, he could see the tiny droplets of sweat on the curve of his throat and the small, premature wrinkles near his eyes. Grantaire took a deep breath. “I’m apologizing,” he replied and, before Enjolras was able to react at all, their lips were pressed together and the man’s callused fingers were fiercely thrown in his hair, holding him close. It was stunning, passionate, extraordinary, nothing compared to anything they’d shared in the past, and Enjolras couldn’t remember how to breathe.

Soon they broke the kiss and Grantaire held his face in his hands. They had so much to say yet they couldn’t produce a single word, not that they really needed to. Their eyes were locked together and that was more than enough, and Grantaire’s hand moved to grip Enjolras’ wrist. “Come on,” he said.

“Where are we going?” the graduate asked, struggling to catch his breath.

Grantaire’s mysterious expression let nothing to show, revealed none of his sentiments, he just breathed raggedly, his glance now distant. “Just trust me,” he said. And Enjolras did.

He’d never felt freer than now, free of anyone and anything, any thought that haunted him in the past, any fear that poisoned his once fearless being. They’d run away and Grantaire was driving his car in streets he didn’t even recognize. All he knew was that they were in the country and no one could reach them, nobody had the right to, not anymore. The sky was blue and free of clouds, the sun shining brightly above their heads. He’d thrown his graduation cloak back in the pitch, and now he was only in his half-buttoned white shirt, lying back against the front seat and watching Grantaire as he drove, beautiful, dark Grantaire, only now he wasn’t really dark because the sun was illuminating his features through the open window and the sweet summer breeze was playing with his curls and his lips were formed in the most serene of smiles. All around there were fields full with flowers, yellow and lilac, and others with wheat that blew gently in the wind, it was pure heaven yet Enjolras didn’t need to look at it, because his own heaven and the sweetest of hells was sitting in the car, on the driver’s seat.

Enjolras slowly peeked his head out of the window, letting the wind stroke his cheeks and passionately flirt with his hair. Soon, half his body was standing out of the window, despite Grantaire’s anxious warnings, and one arm was outstretched at his side, holding resistance. ‘70s rock and roll was playing on the radio and Enjolras was smiling widely, breathing the clean air of the country and feeling freer than he’d ever imagined that was possible. Grantaire was laughing from the inside of the car, a hoarse, rebellious sound, and Enjolras thought that if that moment wasn’t art, then he didn’t know what was.

*

He remembered that lake from when he’d come with his parents as a boy, only faintly, but he remembered. He was very little and he remembered his mother’s body, her smooth thighs as she took him on her lap, her damp swimsuit and the scent of nature on her arms as she wrapped them around him.

It was a stunning scenery. High wheat was hiding them from the world and the sun of the noon from the top of the sky was burning their skin with its rays. A few birds were flying around and singing on the trees, and their clothes seemed ready to set their sweaty skin on fire.

His white shirt was unbuttoned, his pale chest shimmering in the sunlight with a thin layer of sweat. He lay down on the grass, his neck was curvy and long as he tilted his head back to welcome his kisses. He was a man, yet at the same time he was but a boy, the most beautiful boy Grantaire’s eyes had ever dreamt to behold. His Apollo’s eyelids slid shut in delight as he tasted his salty skin, his hands graced with the right to touch what he had loved the most. He felt hands pressing against his chest, fingers clumsily unbuttoning his shirt, then lowering to his trousers and he flinched with anticipation at the hot touch. They kissed hungrily, sloppily, tasting each other like never before, the fresh sweat, the sweet laziness of a summer noon. The boy’s hands felt so smooth on his skin, grabbing his waist below his shirt, stroking his back and finally resting on his hips. They made love slowly, getting to memorize every inch of the other’s body, breathing love in every hollow and every curve and reaching climax almost together, screaming in the bright blue sky, free of any interruptions and collapsing, covered in sweat and marks of love.

It was Enjolras who suggested swimming to clean themselves of the fluid that was drying on their abdomens and hips. Grantaire watched him as he ran in the water, feminine feet making contact with the ground, long, the smooth, long legs and the perfect curve of his hips, the hollow on the small of his back, shining with sweat, and his prominent shoulder blades almost touched by blond curls. He was a masterpiece below the sun, and Grantaire ached to paint him. He followed him in the water and they dived inside, their hair wet and sticking to their scalps, drinking and spitting water, laughing and wrestling underneath it. It was heavenly relief after the heat of the day and of their coupling, the water was cool and sweet, licking their skin so tenderly. They kissed in the lake, naked and free, their limbs tangled around each other beneath the surface. It was like out of a Renaissance painting. It didn’t seem real, but none of them questioned it.

They were lying on the grass below the sun later, on a big towel Grantaire was keeping in the car. “We still haven’t celebrated your birthday properly,” Grantaire muttered, breaking the kiss and resting his hand on Enjolras’ abdomen. “I mean, your friends were in the plan so that’s why they didn’t come here today, they’re preparing something huge for you tomorrow, but still. Your birthday is today.” He showed him the bottle of wine he had brought from the car. They were sipping from the bottle as the sun dried the water from the skin. The wine had gone warm but it was sweet and stirring. Grantaire rested his weight on his elbows. “I haven’t gotten you a birthday present yet. I was busy working as a barista, you see,” his fingers traced featherweight lines on Enjolras’ chest. Their hair was wet and dripping on their shoulders. “But I thought of painting you something when we get back.”

“No,” Enjolras stopped him, “I don’t want you to paint me something.”

Grantaire immediately tensed, feeling ashamed for ever suggesting such a thing. Of course Enjolras wasn’t interested in having one of his crappy works following him around at his quest of searching for a place. “Of course, I’ll get you something else, whatever you need,” he rushed to add.

Enjolras interrupted him with a curt kiss on the lips. “I want you to paint something _on me._ ”

Grantaire froze at his place. “On you? What do you mean?”

“I want you to paint,” Enjolras leaned forward to kiss him again, this time on the sweaty curve of his throat, “on my body.”

Grantaire felt his pulse quickening at the sight of the human canvas sprawled before him, eager to be touched with his brushes. He imagined flowers, he imagined the red of the banners and the red of blood, the blue of the sky and the gold of his hair, all the patterns and the colors hugging his arms, his legs and his alabaster torso. He sensed himself nodding in agreement before laying back again to capture those cherry red lips between his own. “I want to paint the world on you, and make it your own,” he breathed.

He was not Apollo Belvedere anymore, neither was he Galatea and Grantaire himself her teacher, a broken, drunk and corrupted version of Pygmalion. He didn’t have to be a teacher and the boy never had to be a student again. He was his God that so gracefully accepted him and took his hand, and at the same time he wasn’t because he’d never in the past been more human than this moment, with the sun drying their bodies from the sweet water of the lake. He wasn’t just a barista, Enjolras not just a law freshman. They wouldn’t be that forever, nothing would ever identify them as men more than each other.

On Enjolras’ lips a small smile appeared. Grantaire could never stop looking at him. The sun was setting and the sky seemed to be exploding in orange and purple and pink. Their hands clasped between their bodies and their fingers entwined.

They were Enjolras and Grantaire, and they were free.


End file.
